One Act Play - Meaning, Origin, History and Characteristics

        Origin and History of One Act Play

• Meaning of One Act Play

The words “one act play” Plainly stated the it is a play in one-act. This simple definition conveys all that is to be said about one-act plays. Let us analyses this bald statement.

1) It is a play-that is, it is meant to be performed or enacted.

2) It is a short play (of one act) as distinct from a long play (of three or five acts).

• Origin and History

           One-Act plays were written & staged throughout the 18th & 19th centuries as “The Curtain Raisers” or “The after Pieces”. But the origin of one-act plays can be traced to the satyr plays of the Greeks of the 4th century B.C. which were intended to provide relief at the end of the performance of serious tragedies. The modem one-act plays and the Greek satyr plays share a common trait-both can be enjoyed without too much of expense of effort or of time.

        In the Middle Ages (in the 14th and the 15th centuries), there were short there were short plays which dealt with Christian subjects and scriptural themes. These were called the medieval miracle and mystery plays. There was also another of a similar category called the Morality play, of which the outstanding examples was Everyman. Written in the 15th century, Everyman, fits in well with the one-act plays of modem times.

     The 16th century saw the rise and glory of great English drama. The Elizabethan drama was written for professional actors and professional theatre. But in the second half of the 16th century short interludes were written to be performed between two long miracle or mystery plays or between the courses of a banquet. These were truly one-act plays requiring just a few actors and capable of being performed in less than half an hour's time.

       In the 18th century Fielding's Tom Thumb and Sheridan's The Critic deserve to be mentioned in any account of one-act plays. From the above account it is evident that one-act play is not unique to the 20th century, but since the end of the First World War, there has been a proliferation of this kind in the English theatre world. Two reasons can be attributed for this large output of one-act plays the rise of the amateur drama of radio and television

         So, we can say that ----

        The origin of the one-act play may be traced to the very beginning of drama  in ancient Greece, Cyclops, a play on the forest God , by Euripides, is an early example. But, It was great Norwegian dramatist Ibsen, who, for the first time, introduced the minute stage-directions into the one-act play. Before him, one-act plays were written in poetry, but he made prose the medium of his one-act plays. In short, he made the drama, simple & real , & brought it nearer to everyday life. He made the modern one-act play what it is & his example has been widely followed. George Bernard Shaw & John Galsworthy are two of his greatest followers.

         The one-act play requires no elaborate setting & costumes, & so comes in handy to be staged in amateur dramatic societies & clubs.

          One-act plays by major dramatists —–

 (i)  Anton Chekhov —– A Marriage Proposal (1890)

 (ii) August Strindberg —–Pariah (1889)

                                        Motherly Love (1892)

                                        The First Warning (1892)

 (iii) Thornton Wilder —-The Long Christmas Dinner (1931)

 (iv) Eugene Ionesco —- The Bald Soprano (1950)

 (v)  Arthur Miller —-A Memory of Two Mondays (1955)

 (vi) Samuel Beckett —- Krapp’s Last Tape (1958)

 (vii) Israel Horovitz —-Line (1974)

 (viii) Edward Albee —- The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (2002)

• Chief Characteristics of One Act Play

1. One-act play is a play that has only one act, but may consist of one or more scenes.

2. One-act plays are usually written in a concise manner.

3. It deals with a single dominant situation, & aims at producing a single effect.

4. It deals with only one theme developed through one situation to one climax in order to produce the maximum of effect.

5. It treats the problems of everyday life as marriage, punishment for crimes, labor conditions, divorce, etc.

6. The one-act play, like the longer drama, should have beginning, a middle & an end. It may be divided into four stages :

- The Exposition, 

-The Conflict, 

-The Climax & 

-The Denouement.  

             The exposition is usually brief, serves as an  introduction to the play. It is through the conflict that the action of the drama develops. It is the very backbone of the one-act play. Climax is the turning point of the drama. It  is an important part of the one-act play & constitutes its moment    of supreme interest. The Denouement is very brief & often overlaps with climax.

7. Action begins right at the start of the play.

8. There are no breaks in the action, that is , it is continuous       since its a short play; no intervals.

9. Everything superfluous is to be strictly avoided as the play is short & the action takes place within a short period of time. It introduces elaborate stage directions to minimize the time taken by the action itself.

10. The creation of mood, or atmosphere is indispensable to its success.

11. There are three dramatic unities which are observed in the one-act play. The unities are —- the unity of time, unity of place & the unity of action.

12. It aims at simplicity of plot ; concentration of action & unity of impression. It does not rely on spectacular effects & common dramatic tricks of old.

13. The characters in a one-act play are limited in number. Generally, there are not more than two or three principal characters.

14. There is no full development of character. All the different aspects of a character are not presented. The attention is focused on only one or two salient aspects of character & they are brought out by placing the characters in different situations & circumstances. The author implies the past & intimates the future of a character by presenting a crucial moment in the life of that character.

15. There is an influence of realism. The characters in the modern one-act play are ordinary men & women. It depicts characters that seems to be real & related to everyday life.

16. It must present a question, for which the audience eagerly awaits the answer.

17. Its language is simple & can be followed without any strain. All superfluity is to be avoided in the dialogue. The dialogue must be purposeful; the best dialogue is that which does several things at one time. Every word is to be carefully chosen & sentences must be compact & condensed. Effort should be made to say, whatever is to be said, in the least possible words. Thus, the language of the dialogue should be simple , brief & easy to understand . Long speeches & arguments & long sentences would be out of place & would lessen the charm & interest of the play.

The Elements of Literature for a good interpretation of literature

1. ELEMENTS OF FICTION

 • The Story, whether it is a short story, novel or fork tale, has the following general elements that are used to analyze any written story:

 -Author 

-Setting 

-plot 

-Themes 

-Characters 

-Style 

-Language

1.1. ELEMENTS OF FICTION (AUTHOR) 

       Author: This is the writer of any written work of art or fiction. It is very important to not only know the name of the author, but you should also understand and appreciate his or her background. This will help you the reader to understand what, how and why the author writes any story or novel. For example, authors have different writing styles in their works, and they are motivated variously in their writing the story. Once you appreciate these things about the author, it most likely that you shall understand and enjoy the story you are reading and analyzing.

1.2. ELEMENTS OF FICTION (SETTING) 

 • This is the place and time in which the story unfolds or takes place. 

• Setting is important in understanding the background and impact of the story or incidents in the story. If a story is well told, we will recall the setting later, long after we have put the story aside. Where the setting threatens the characters, it creates the conflict which is as important in fiction writing or literature. 

• So, in interpreting or reviewing a setting of a story, you may have to ask and answer such questions as: How does the setting or atmosphere influence the work? Where do the events of story take place? When do they occur? What was the mood when the incident took place?

1.3. ELEMENTS OF FICTION (PLOT) 

        This is a series or chain of related events that tells us ‘what happens’ in a story. When a plot is well mapped out, it ‘hooks’ us, that is, it catches our curiosity (interest) about what will happen next. A good plot draws us along after the narrator, just as a fish is hooked and played and reeled in by an expert fisherman. The first thing to recognize about plot is the nature of that hook which pulls us along and keeps us reading. What the hook grabs is our own curiosity, making us wonder about the outcome of a conflict. When a story is strong, you can be reasonably sure its conflict is strong.

1.3.1. ELEMENTS OF PLOT 

• Let us explore this idea of conflict further because it is a core or basic element of plot in the story. It is conflict or struggle that gives any story its energy.

 • This conflict can be between one person or animal and another, one person or animal and a group of persons or a whole society, one person or animal and nature, or one person or animal with something in the person or animal such as fear, shyness, homesickness, or just an inability to make a decision.

1.3.2. ELEMENTS OF PLOT CONFLICT

 • A conflict can be external, as when a person struggles with another person, or with an angry warthog or with a hurricane. On the other hand, a conflict can be internal, that is, it can take place inside a person’s mind or heart. This might happen when a character has to make a hard decision, or struggle against fear, or resist an urge to poke his nose into everyone’s business.

• More conflicts in a story result into complications that develop as you read the story that require resolutions. In most cases, these complications are full of suspense that builds up as you anticipate what happens next in the story. This leads to a climax in the story, that is, the most emotional moment or the tensest mood of the story (breath-taking). Lastly, every story with conflicts should come to a resolution or an end. Sometimes the story may end in suspense, leaving you to guess what happens at the end of the story. However, most stories especially short stories will often have a resolution or conclusive end. In other words, your questions are answered at the end of the story whether for good or bad.

 • Therefore, in interpreting or reviewing a plot for the story, you may have to ask and answer such questions as: What is the central conflict of the story? Why does the conflict occur? What larger meaning or picture is suggested by the way the conflict is resolved?

1.4. ELEMENTS OF FICTION (THEME)

 • Theme: This refers to the controlling, main idea or central insight in the novel or short story. Theme answers the question ‘What does it mean?’ a story’s theme is often hard to state, but it is what the author means or what the reader perceives to mean by the whole story. 

• A theme is usually stated in a sentence or statement. This is so because a theme has to say something about the subject rather than just stated as a subject phrase!

 • Mostly, questions are framed in such a way as to let you show that you have learnt one or so lessons from the novel that bear on human interests. These are usually challenging questions because they require you to have a good overview of the text with regard to a wide spectrum of issues raised in the novel or short story. Such questions may be asked and answered as: What central idea or insight into life does the work convey? How do other elements help illustrate or reveal this idea or insight?

1.5. ELEMENTS OF FICTION (CHARACTERS) 

• Characters: These are persons or animals involved in a story in order to show entertain and show us some truth about human experience and ourselves. A good character should be ‘alive’ to help us appreciate the story well. In a story, we can recognize a character by his/her/its appearance, actions and thoughts, reactions of others (what other characters say or do in relation to the character), and direct statement of the author (comments made by the writer of the story as the narrator). 

• However, the best story is one in which the narrator doesn’t tell much directly about what the character is like. Instead, you learn about the character indirectly by how the character acts and how others act toward him/her, and by noticing what he/she thinks and says.

• Characterization refers to the kinds of characters the novel or short story has depending on the level of their development and involvement in the story of the book. For example, are the characters flat or round, protagonists or antagonists, major or minor, stars or backers? 

• So, in most cases, questions come in such a way that you need to compare and contrast, describe, discuss pros and cons of one or more characters with regard to the development of the story or show appreciation of the characters generally. In other words, you can ask and answer such questions as: Why do characters act as they do? What are their motives? Do the characters change? How do they change?

1.6. ELEMENTS OF FICTION (STYLE) 

• This refers to the way the novel or short story is written in order to have a desired effect on the reader or audience. 

• It also refers to the techniques used by the writer of a literary work such as point of view, humor, fantasy, flashbacks, tone, and so on.

 • Style of writing if understood and appreciated well, can help you to analyze the story very well.

 • On rare occasions, questions are asked to test your knowledge and skills in these literary devices or techniques based on a novel or story that you have read. The questions that may help you interpret or review a work of literature include: What stylistic devices does the author use? What effects do they have? How does the tone, or author’s attitude, affect the work of art?

 • Point of View: This refers to the style the writer of a story uses to narrate the story. In other words, writers usually chose who should tell the story or who should be the mouth piece in the story. So, you can tell the story from various angles by using points of view. There are three basic points of view often used in narratives: omniscient, third-person limited, and first-person.

• The omniscient (unlimited) point of view is the point of view of a god-like (all-knowing) being who has created a fictional world and who can tell us everything that is going on in the minds of all the characters. The omniscient narrator is outside the story; he or she is not part of the action at all.

 • The third-person (limited) point of view is where the writer has decided to tell the story from the limited point of view of a single person (participant) in the story. This kind of story reads as if a camera is zooming in on just one character. The writer uses the third person singular (he or she, or the actual name) of the character. This is very close to the omniscient point of view in that the writer still takes a prominent role.

 • And in the first-person (limited) point of view, the narrator speaks as ‘I’, as a character in the story. This character can tell us only what he or she sees and hears and thinks about what is going on. In other words, the narrator is a participant in the story. The writer chooses to tell the story in the name of another fictitious person and uses the first person pronoun ‘I’ as witness and participant in the events that unfold in the story. In this case, the point of view is also limited in that the narrator can only tell what he or she sees or experiences rather than what others do.

 • In order to review the points of view of any story, you may need to ask and answer such questions as:

 • What is the point of view used in the story?

 • Is it consistently used? 

• How does it affect your understanding of the work? 

• Why did the author choose that point of view?

1.7. ELEMENTS OF FICTION (LANGUAGE) 

• Language is part of style but it stands out to be the most important element of any fiction writing.

 • Literary language is often used in fiction writing to ‘relish’ the story so that it is more clear, educative, informative, and indeed interesting or entertaining.

 • Some of these language devices include figures of speech and symbolism such as images, symbols, irony, metaphors, similes, satire, and so on.

• The questions that may help you interpret or review a work of literature include:

•  What figures of speech have been used? What symbols or images does the work include? 
• What do they mean? 
• What do they suggest about the meaning of the work as a whole? 
• You shall learn more about literary language later when we deal with poetry.

Kind of literature

      Generally literature is divided in to two parts namely - 1. Fictional literature  and  2. Non fictional literature.

       Fictional literature is imaginary composed writing or work of art that is meant to provide information, education and entertainment to the reader. In the other words fictional literature is based on the writer’s imagination rather than reality. For example fictional literature include plays, poems, short stories, novels, oral literature, and songs.

      Non fictional literature is factual writing or written work that is gives facts that can be provided as it provides real places, events, characters, times or reality rather than imaginary things. For example Non fictional literature include autobiographies, biographies, essays, diaries and journals, magazine, newspapers, subject text book such as in Geography, History and Civic Education.

Treatment of Nature in Romantic Poetry OR Contribution of Romantic Poets in Nature Poetry.

        The growth of love of Nature is the most remarkable and interesting general feature of the Romantic Age. No doubt there was a movement in favor of poetry dealing with the nature. In the later period with the eighteenth century, the Pre-Raphaelite poets begun this movement with the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 the new era in English poetry will begin. In the collection of Wordsworth and Coleridge decided to write poetry in simple language and about the natural and supernatural element. Really, it was William Wordsworth who gave to nature a separate life and soul. He is mostly known as a ‘high priest of nature.’ Wordsworth spiritualized nature and made her a moral teacher.

      Let’s discuss the contribution of Romantic Poets who have written nature poetry.

Wordsworth:

         As we know that Wordsworth was a true lover of nature. Each and every poems of Wordsworth one or other way connected connecte with nature. Nature was the true source of his poetry. His conception of nature is developed as he grows in year. His attitude for nature may be classified in to three parts:

i. The period of blood

ii. The period of scenes

iii. The period if Imagination and Soul

       In the first stage poets love for nature is simple like a boy. His love for nature was without any mystical and spiritual touch. W. H. Hudson remarks that – “His love for nature was highly boy’s open love of open airs and freedom of field.” He was attracted by physical beauties of nature.  His poems ‘The Rainbow’, ‘To the Cuckoo’, and so on expresses the love of child toward the nature.

         In the second stage his love for nature is with the passion which was all physical without any tinge or intellectual or philosophical association. It was the age of sweet sentences. He enchanted by the sound and sight of nature. We find this in his ‘Tintern  Abby’.

      In the third stage his attitude toward nature change from physical to spiritual. He feels mystical touched him. Now a great mission starts. Now he begins to find in object of nature a soul, a living spirit. In the later years of his life. He interested in inner spirit of nature.

         Wordsworth made nature a teacher of man. According to him – “Men is able to communicate with the nature easily.” The reason is keenship between two. In the poem ‘Table Turn’. He tells to the scholar that books are dull, he should leave them and let nature to be teacher. Wordsworth advocated that the nature is the mother of men. He say that, when you are unhappy and lonely go to Mother Nature’s lap. You will be full of company and happiness. The poem ‘Daffodils’ is good example Wordsworth as poet of nature believe that each and every object is connected with nature and it can be subject of his poetry, includes the birds, the rainbow, the flowers, the woods, the solitary reaper and so on.

P. B. Shelly:

           Like Wordsworth, Shelly finds joy in nature. His hearts dance with the joy and hear music of skylark. Like Keats was also sensuous to beauty of nature. His picture of nature is colorful. Shelly could love all object of nature. It was with the passion of lover. Infect his love is wider and waster. He loved rocks and caves, furry of storms, thunders, dancing waves and so on

          Shelly as a poet of nature, is a different from Wordsworth. Wordsworth loved static, the quiet and the fixed nature. On the other hand Shelly’s attitude was changing and dynamic. He was more  interested in her doing then in her form. Words word wrote nature poetry to convey his feeling and ideas. Shelly’s ‘Ode to West Wind’, ‘To the Skylark’, ‘Adonis’ are highly symbolic poems Shelly was also a kin observer of nature. He expresses some philosophical ideas through the nature.

Joan Keats:

        Keats treatment of nature is much simpler, more direct and personal than that of Shelly or Wordsworth. He does not spiritualize nature. He also does not go to her to learn the lessons of morality. Infect he goes to nature for his physical and sensuous aspects. He takes childlike delight in her external beauties. He loves her as she is. His ‘Ode To Automan’ expresses the universal sensuousness. Unlike Shelly, Keats love is calm and quite nature. He loves a sleep of nature, silent of nature and so on. To Keats nature was like God and Goddess. 

S T Coleridge

        Like Wordsworth, Coleridge was Pantheist and in his early poems, we notice the presence of divine spirit with the colour of object of nature. He believed in a spiritual contact between the men and nature and in moral and educative influences of nature in mind. He has kin feeling for the Super-sensual in nature. His picture of nature are coloured by human association. He gets joy in presenting the picture of nature.

Lord Byron:

        Byron’s love of nature was intense. His attitude toward nature was little different form Wordsworth, Shelly and Keats. He attitude toward nature was not a country man but of town men. Byron presents both the calm and stormy aspect of nature. He was attracted mostly toward water in nature. His description of Rhone, Rhine and the Ocean are the fine pieces of nature.

Others:

      Poets earlier to Wordsworth, like Burns, Cowper, Crabbe and Goldsmith exhibited a fine appreciation for the beauties of nature in external aspect. In the works of Cowper, Crabbe and Gray the treatment of nature is simple chronic and sympathic observation.

Conclusion:

         In this way, Wordsworth make nature the teacher of men, Shelly creates the picture of nature, colourful and furious. Keats presents the calm and quite nature. Coleridge find divine in nature. Byron presents both the calm and storm aspect of nature. In short, we can say that nature poetry in Romantic Age is the new era in English poetry.

Importance of Literature OR Importance to Study the literature

       literature acts as a window or mirror (or both.) Literature as a window allows us to peer out from our lives to learn about what is going on in the lives of people in other times and places.  As mirror literature is that we use to hold up and learn something about ourselves. Sometimes literature allows us to do both, learn about another world and learn about ourselves, too.

      When we study literature, our horizons are broadened, because we can learn about and come to understand people who are different from us. Conversely, we might discover characters or poems that we really identify with—it can be really exciting and validating to discover that your exact thoughts and feelings have also been experienced by someone else. Because of these effects, literature encourages us to be sensitive to the whole spectrum of human experience and to consider this when making decisions in our day-to-day lives. Academically, studying literature also helps us to refine our own writing skills and expand our vocabularies.

      Literature is also a form of time travel that helps put today in context. All those apocalyptic lamentations about how "things used to be so much better" are controverted in literature of the last generation, the last century, all the way back to Shakespeare and beyond. Conversely, reading about how people lived in the past can really make you appreciate what humanity is able to accomplish and endure. In the classics, you may read about political battles, domestic abuse, prejudice and civil rights, unwanted pregnancy, binge drinking on college campuses, gangs and juvenile crime, homelessness, nationwide economic crises caused by speculation--as Solomon wrote thousands of years ago, there is nothing new under the sun. History tells us what people did; literature tells us what they were thinking.

     Literature in general is very important to a readers although you may not take literature in English as an examinable subject at school. Reading is infact very much part of language learning. This will among other thing, improve your command of the English language if you read widely.

• In short we can say that -

1. Literature improves your command of language.

2. It teaches you about the  life, cultures and experiences of the people in other parts of world. literature also teaches us many lessons that have universal themes, such as love, war, desire, justice and many more. When we read these topics, we become much more sophisticated in our thinking and our view of the world expands. This makes us better citizens

3. It gives you information about other parts of the world which may never be able to visit lifetime.

4.It entertains you and provides useful occupation in your free time. It makes you wiser and more experienced person by forcing you to judge, sympathize with, or criticize the characters you read about. So  literature also makes us think, as we might not necessarily agree. We will have to form opinions and convictions of our own and the reading of English literature can aid us in the process.

5. It gives information which may be useful in other subjects, for example in Geography, Science, History, Social Studies and so on. And the English literature tells us about the history of the English speaking world. In other words, through this literature, you are able to learn about ourselves and our history.

The Romantic Movement as – “the Renaissance of Wonder” or “the addition of strangeness of Beauty”

Introduction

         The publication of ‘Lyrical Ballads’ in 1798, proved to be landmark in the history of revival of Romantic Movement in England. It was also revolt against the Neo-Classical tendencies dominant in English literature. They were correctness, following rules and regulations, didacticism and intellectualism. Though the pope was dominating, there was a reaction against the classicism. The Pre Romantic poets paved for a full and complete revival of romantic tendencies in the early nineteenth century. Infect, the Wordsworth and Coleridge hoisted the flag of Romantic Revival.  The movement lasted for the first three decades of nineteenth century.

Definition of Romanticism:

       Certain critics have given good definition of Romanticism. They were really popular and clear.

According to Walter Pater – “Romanticism is the addition of strangeness and beauty.” And the Dunton calls it – “the Renaissance of wonder.” These simple phrases means that the element of wonder is revived in the English literature – poetry. During the Romantic Movement, it’s also means the revival of child’s vision.

Expressions of Child like Innocence:

        The romantic revival is also the revival of Child's vision. It had already dean noticed in the every poems of Blake. His Songs of innocence expresses the innocence of child like. It contains some most charming lyrics ever written in English. There is a little realistic observation of the world around us.

        Blake’s treatment of childhood found an echo of Wordsworth’s treatment of childhood. Coleridge one remarked that – “…. To carry the feeling of childhood in to the years of the manhood is the mark of genius.”

        We don’t find such a quality in the poetry of the age of the pope. The poets of the age of the pope believed that the world was “the film and familiarity”. They never tried to know the wonder and mystery which was hidden in the common object of the life. The Romantic poet found out the world through the imagination. They were struck of the newness of things and presented them in delightful colours. They opened new fields and cameras.

The Role of Imagination:

       Romanticism is also known as – “An extra ordinary development of imaginative sensibility.” [C. H. Harford]. 

        It’s this imaginative sensibility opened the new fields and sights which were the source of wonder for both the poets and the readers. There was a kind of escape. Coleridge escaped in the world of supernatural. Scott derived inspiration from The Middle Ages. Keats took shelter from the Middle Ages. Even Byron and Shelly also revolted against the realistic world and labored hard to usher in ‘the Golden ape’. When priest’s, King’s, and Tyrone’s world yield to wishes of the underdogs of the society, the poor and the down trodden.

Coleridge and his Supernatural:

        Coleridge was the greatest among the Romantic poets. He was lives in the world of dream and imagination. He was to write about the hidden imaginative and romantic subject with supernatural and superhuman power. His popular poems are – Christabel, Kubla khan, and The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

     They are all the wonder of delight, feast of imagination and a height of romanticism. They contain element of supernatural among three poems. In all his poems we find the world of awe and wonder. We see the sunny domes, caves of ice, remote places like Xanadu, Depth of valleys, food of honey, dew girl   sitting on the ice place and looking for his demon lover etc. In the Ancient Mariner, we find human thought gallop, spurt of emotions, fancy flies and imagination rushed riot. We also find the circle of awe and wonder. Kubla khan is also most enchanting poems.

Supremacy of Coleridge:

Even before Coleridge, Shakespeare, Spencer and Marlowe also dealt with the supernatural elements like witches, spirit, ghosts. But the Coleridge was different and superior in treatment. His treatment of Supernatural was neither shocking nor appealing. It is highly suggestive, psychological, refined and elegant. He naturalized supernatural and made it convincing. He has deftly created atmosphere of mystery and indefiniteness by subtle suggestion like –

 Water, Water everywhere,

And all the boards did sink;

Water, Water everywhere,

Not any drop to drink.

[The Rime of the Ancient Mariner]

Wordsworth and his nature:

Wordsworth was the high priest of nature. He wrote about the simple subject and in simple diction. The subject of his poem is mostly nature. In his treatment of natural object, humble life and common object of ordinary world. We find ‘touch of wonder and curiosity.’  He does not present the photographic picture of the nature, but he creates it by imagination. Even such a common subject as – A solitary reaper, a cuckoo, the skylark, the daffodils breathe as a sense of wonder.

Medievalism and Hellenism

Among the Romantic poets Coleridge, Scott and Keats went to the Middle Ages to create an effect of wonder. According to Keats ancient Greece was full of art and beauty. Keats has great adoration of beauty both in its physical and spiritual aspects. His adoration of Hellenic way of life is glorified in his immortal odes. He went to the Romantic past to discovered beauty and mystery in unfamiliar to the gratification of scenes.

Conclusion

The beauty is worshiped by the Romantics. It has a touch of the unfamiliar, even the unconventional, remote, exotic and abnormal. There is always search of strange beauty in far off and regions. This element of strangeness added to beauty and it is the essence of Romanticism as understood Pater.

In short every romantic poet writes to make the period “The Renaissance of wonder” and the “addition of strangeness to beauty.”

Definition and Characteristics of Literature

Defination of Literature - 

  “the body of written works produced in a particular language, country, or age, or the body of writings on a particular subject (scientific, art, etc.)” (Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus).

        Usually we believe that whatever is written is literature. On the other hand, different writing such as Railway Time Table, History, Economics or News items is not considered as a literature.

      Literature can be defined as ‘pieces of writing that are valued as works of art, especially novels, plays and poems’.  (Oxford Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary).

        Literature is a special kind of writing which different from the other writing. Literature is that kind of writing which is charged with human interest. It is characterize by permanence colour of imagination and artistic embellishment. It’s still with the life of man and his destinies on the earth. It expresses thought, feeling, emotion and attitude toward the life which are permanent and universal, in the other word they do not change with the change of the time. And it’s this permanence and universality makes literature different from the other writing, such as Journalism or advertisement. The views and thoughts are expressed in the news paper makes to be forgotten after some time, while those of literature go on appealing through the corridors of time. The report of earthquake in Gujarat before few years was appealing and emotional but people of certainly have forgotten it’s very soon. The dramas of William Shakespeare more than hundred years are still interesting and appealing even the Ramayana and the Mahabharata written before the five thousand year ago are still later of interesting and appealing.

So the literature is the production of a unique mind as well as it superior to other writing. It contains certain characteristic. The other writing gives us only information or knowledge while literature gives knowledge as well as pleasure. There are four remarkable features of literature such as –

(1) Sincerity  (2)  Life Likeness (3) Suggestiveness (4) Originality

• Sincerity

      Literature is a unique art. It needs almost sincerity and seriousness. It is believed that writer is inspired by the news than the write. The activity of literature writing is kind of mediation. The writer makes sincere effort and thus creates unique work of art because of this sincerity. Literature has quality like permanence and universality. Shakespeare’s plays, Wordsworth’s poems are with the sincerity. Such literature creates good impact upon others.

• Life Likeness

      Literature is a genuine record of human life. Though it is more imaginative, it has the ground reality of life. At a centre the writers write about what they see, what their experience and what they know about the life.  Thus there is life likeness. In the literature Shakespeare’s tragedies were written before many years ago, though they are about English society, they are accepted by the whole world. We find the similar experience in life, as they are found in those tragedies.

• Suggestiveness:

     Since the literature aims at to please to move and to teach, it must be capable to having certain qualities. Literature is directly connected with the human life, and so it is highly suggestive. Many works of literature have hidden meanings. The writers use different symbols to convey the meaning because of suggestiveness. Literature is complex and difficult to write or to understand. T. S. Eliot’s ‘The west Land’ W. B. Yeast’s Poetry and novels of Dickens’s are full of suggestiveness. 

• Originality:

      The critic like Plato believes that literature is merrily to copy of copy it has no reality or originality. But we don’t agree with the Plato. Actually literature is a unique creation. It connected with the human and emotions and life. Every writer has a unique personality. He may be inspired but his ideas are original. We like to read Shakespeare’s tragedies, Dickens’s novel or poems of Wordsworth. The originality of literature appeals to every human being, the incidents may be probable but they are universally accepted.