Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Narration and the Epic Most forms of poetry have a narrative dimension Conversely, most of the world’s ‘valued literary narratives are poems’ As you read Paradise Lost this aspect -- its status as an 'epic' -- must come to your mind. The word "epic" should ring in a necessary connection with poetry. Narration is a necessary element of poetry.

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Narrative in poetry Continuous narrative poems = poems in the epic tradition I - mostly the ‘primary’ epics that have emerged in the oral traditions; e.g. the Homeric poems, Beowulf, the Kalevala) II – ‘secondary’ literary epics like Virgil’s Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost, medieval and Renaissance verse romances like the Arthurian romances of Chrétien de Troyes, Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso(1516), Spenser’s The Fairie Queene (1590)

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Narrative in poetry (contd.) »III – mock-epic poems, folk-ballads (and their literary imitations; The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) »IV – ‘novels in verse’ (Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Browning’s The Ring and the Book) »V – narrative autobiographies in verse (Wordsworth’s The Prelude) This is just to enable you to think beyond the text -- thinking of the poem as just an object needing explanations limits us dictionaries and biographies. But every text is an active participant in history and historical and cultural processes. In that sense, narrative theory releases us from the restrictions of keeping strictly to the dictionary meanings of words, etc. Literary study is often richer for going beyond the obvious.

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Problems/Issues in the above ‘Classic’ problems of narrative theory: –Orality –Fictionality –Author and audience –Narrator and narratee –Monologism and dialogism –Diegesis and mimesis –The story/discourse distinction –Exposition and description –Episode and digression –Embedding, multi-plot narrative, characterisation

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Narrative in poetry (contd.1) Quasi-narrative sequences (Renaissance sonnet- sequences) Implicit narrative situations of lyric poems (“My Last Duchess”) Narrative materials ‘folded into’ basically lyric poems (myths and micro-narratives of Pindaric odes)

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Understanding Text/ Context relations Understanding this relationship is a major challenge (especially in cultural studies) Why? = We recognise that literary narratives are not mimetic cultural reflections (they should not be taken to be ‘documents’ that provide a transparent approach to a past reality, or a reality to be discovered below the surface of the text I am emphasising the point I made earlier : literature or literary activity should be seen as the objectification of the relationship of society and text. That is to say, instead of seeing it as a simple matter of society being reflected in a literary work you must see it as an object that has arisen out of social and cultural workings through time.

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University How the ‘text’ exists Further problems with the text-context relation –= but literature is, after all, mixed up with reality –Can we separate a text from reality ? –“What complicates the matter even more is the fact that a “context’ is not the sum of given data...but a ‘text’,too. For the cultural and literary historian, the context is thus not a ‘datum’ but another ‘interpretandum’, just like the literary text itself.”

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University In other words….. A literary text does not directly reflect or mirror reality. A literary text also interprets reality IN A SIMILAR MANNER The ‘context’ of a text is also, like the literary text, not simply an item of data to be taken up. It is a ‘text’ related to the primary text that is itself also to be regarded as a piece of interpretation to be studied. That is, both text and context are ‘texts’ to be studied and understood

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Re-formulating our problem Should we regard Paradise Lost as simply reflecting its cultural history? What do we lose by doing so ? (we lose insights into questions why Milton chose to write an epic, why he characterised Satan in the way he did, what was so significant about his interpretation of the Biblical story, what were his specific techniques in the epic, etc)

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Delving into the problem For Milton, what can be a specific narrative gain in the choice of the epic form? The pseudo-’heroic’ character of Satan The advantages of allusiveness Christian conceptions of Hell, heaven The ‘grand’ narrative and the grand theme (“Of Man’s first disobedience... “)

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Specific issues Does Satan look like an epic hero ? Or is he far more universalised? So that he does not look topical? Can we see Milton exploring a cross-cultural dimension in the portrayal of evil ? Or does he see Christianity as the only world religion ? Who is the narratee of his narrative?

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Consider “O shame to men! Devil with devil damned Firm concord holds. Men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of Heav’nly grace and, God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity and strife Among themselves and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth each other to destroy— As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes enow besides That day and night for his destruction wait!”

Dr. Uttara Debi, Asst. Professor, IDOL, Gauhati University Questions to Ponder Who is the narratee? How does the passage relate to its immediate reality?