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Subalterns in The Merchant of Venice: Interrogating the Postcolonial Reading
-- Bindu Sharma
William Shakespeare has often been indicted by the postcolonial school of critics for being prejudiced against the subalterns in his plays, especially in The Merchant of Venice. They accuse him of being anti-Semitic. This paper is an endeavor to question this interpretation of the play by exploring Shakespeare’s own stance on the pertinent issues of racial divide and ethnic isolation of the Jews and Blacks in his own times. It also examines Shakespeare’s treatment of the subalterns which seems to mirror his own abhorrence for the prevalent social disparities and inequities based on ethnicity, color and class. By scrutinizing his character delineation, the paper seeks to discover whether Shakespeare portrays the marginalized in the stereotypical and conventional mode of his contemporaries, or presents them as pulsating human beings characterized by their individual traits. Finally, an attempt has been made to establish Shakespeare as a liberal humanist who lends voice to the voiceless, rather than a racist with colonial leanings.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
The Disguised Heroines of Shakespeare
--R Venkatesan Iyengar
Today, disguise is a living facet of drama. To disguise in a play is to wear some attire that modifies one’s appearance and conceals one’s identity. Disguise thus gives an outward semblance that misrepresents the true nature of someone. And when that someone happens to be a female who chooses to disguise as a male or vice versa (sexual disguise), it results in mistaken identity and the consequent confusion and comical situations. Shakespeare certainly was not the first to use sexual disguise as a plot device in plays, but the credit for turning it into a fine art should undoubtedly go to him. This paper takes a close look at how Shakespeare uses what has come to be called girl-page device to create different levels of awareness and advantage as integral part of plot development, with particular reference to three disguised heroines of Shakespeare—Viola, Rosalind, and Portia.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
From Shakespeare to Olson: An Inquiry into Poetical Discourse
--Amitabh Vikram Dwivedi
The present paper sets out an inquiry into poetic discourse from Shakespeare to Olson. The poetic discourse has been an intriguing topic in the academic and creative writing for its evolution from rhymed and metric verses to free and visual poems. The paper finds its motivation from the current practices among creative poetry writers which enable them to do experiment with poems, such as one sentence poetry, forty-word poems, etc. This paper interrogates: What makes a poem “a poem”? Whether it is rhyme, meter, imagery, poetic device, or something else? The paper sets out a logical inquiry to poetic language proposed by Keshav Mishra in his seminal work Logic in Language, and it also employs Chomskian competence to poetry.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Commonalities Between Shakespeare’s Characters
and Indian Mythological Figures: Contemporary Relevance
--A Ratna Malathi
This paper aims at studying the commonalities between a few famous Shakespeare’s characters and Indian mythological figures, proving that human beings share certain common emotions. Of course, literary works reflect contemporary society, but a few gain universality and timelessness; of them are Shakespeare’s works and Indian mythological stories. They are replete with various characteristics of man: how moral weakness can possess the mind and lead it to annihilation; and the question of ‘moral choice’ in all issues and circumstances. In particular, Shakespearean characters like Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, King Lear and Brutus, are noble in nature, yet are destroyed by their own emotional actions which often lead to the destruction of those close to them as well. Here rises a question: What are those emotions? Undoubtedly, the characters become prey to the internal emotions which are called as Arishadvargas (inner enemies), i.e., kama (lust, desire), krodha (anger, hatred), lobha (greed, narrow-mindedness), moha (delusory, emotional attachment), mada (arrogance), maatsarya (envy, jealousy). This paper studies the negative passions of these characters that are responsible for all kinds of difficult experiences and the undoing of their lives as well as their relevance in the contemporary society, underscoring the universality of Shakespeare’s works.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Leaders’ Ethical Dilemmas: Shakespeare’s Analysis:
A Lesson for Today’s Business Leaders
--GRK Murty
East or west, ethical conduct is the very essence of happy-living. It is said that the ‘divine’ is expressed as ethical consciousness in human life. Yet, we often see breakdown in the ethical practices. And when such breakdowns occur among the people occupying influential positions, it is certain to cause mayhem as is felt during the recent global economic crisis. Drawing from the extensive research carried out on cognitive biases, Bazerman and Tenbrunsel (2011) offered five reasons as to how ethical breakdowns occur in organizations. One of them is: motivated blindness, owing to which organizations or its leaders tend to overlook the unethical behavior, for remaining ignorant would be beneficial. An attempt has been made here to expound this concept using the character, Brutus in Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar. Simultaneously, examining the ethical foundations laid down by Vedic Risis, this paper also traces as to what dharma stands for and how the seers made its practice immanent necessity for everybody, including kings/leaders: “anityani sarirani vibhavo naiva sasvatah / nityam samnihito mrtyuh, kartavyo dharma-samgrahah”—Our bodies are not permanent, our prosperity is fleeting; death is always near to us. Therefore, one should take to dharma.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Teaching Shakespeare
--C Subba Rao
My students enjoyed Shakespeare’s plays, especially his tragedies, much more than anything else. Guided by me and in the light of the insightful criticism offered by the famous Shakespearean scholars, they had a true comprehension of his tragedies and tragic heroes like ‘Brutus’, ‘Hamlet’ and, ‘Macbeth’. They came to know that in a Shakespearean tragedy, character is destiny though accidents may happen. They understood that each Shakespearean hero had a flaw that spelt his doom in spite of his great merits. They also enjoyed his comedies like As You Like It, The Merchant of Venice and Twelfth Night. They were fascinated by Falstaffian wit and humor; they liked his disposition for pun, fun and frolic. His indefatigable energy, his undying charm, and, above all, his high spirits and zest for life fascinated them. Though they appreciated that sonnet became an effective poetic genre for an expression of tenderest feelings of love, they felt that he wrote better poetry in his plays, especially his tragedies. Shakespeare is matchless: there is not an aspect of human nature or an angularity of human mind that he has not perceived and immortalized in his works. May the great bard live eternally in our memory!
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Relevance of Shakespeare’s Management Lessons
--Hetal M Doshi
It has been a common myth that literature interests us only in childhood and adolescent age. As we progress in our lives in terms of age, literature loses its impact and charm. The stress of challenges for survival and growth, intricacy in relations, lifestyle and time-crunch keep us away from the spell of literature. However, this belief cannot ignore the intrinsic values that literary pages offer us almost in each walk of life. From childhood fairy-tales, adolescent love stories and romantic poetries to stories of family revenge and soreness of separation, each theme and each genre of literature has taught and continues teaching the art of personal and professional management of affairs. The present paper tries to highlight the relevance of Shakespearean plays to the study of management. The paper attempts to read some very popular texts and then analyzes how these texts offer us some management insights.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Mechanics of Madness in Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear
--Shweta Bali
Insanity—real or obfuscated—is integral to the fiber of many of Shakespearean plays. Apart from reflecting the political turmoil, madness adds to the atmosphere of pathos, misfortune and selfdestruction of the protagonists in his plays. A pathological condition, widely prevalent in the Elizabethan times, lunacy manifested itself in multifarious forms—paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, suspicion, secrecy, confinement and isolation in the society. The Bard faithfully reproduces this symptomatic malady in his tragedies and comedies. Consequently, falsity, pretentiousness or role-playing for a motive emerges as vital an element as the real madness augmented by reckless ambition, senseless jealousy, filial ingratitude, desertion and trickery. Shakespeare, the master craftsman, uses it deftly to recreate and underscore the political and social ramifications of the irregularities and abnormalities of human mind which conversely reflect a parallel world of insanity in the outer world marred by distrust, deceit and deception. This paper is an attempt to explore the mechanics of madness, whether real or feigned, in three of Shakespeare’s famous tragedies—Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
Tragic Flaw in Shakespeare’s Hamlet
--P Indira Devi
In spite of the fact that tragedies had been written in English prior to Shakespeare, it was Shakespeare who gave it its distinguishing features and elevated it to peaks of excellence. Shakespeare’s tragedy depicts the operation of tragic flaw in hero’s character. Although chance, fate and supernatural also play their role in the fall of the hero, Shakespearean tragedy is essentially the tragedy of character. A ‘tragic flaw’ is a literary term that refers to a personality trait of the protagonist that leads to his or her downfall due to the personal defect of character. The word ‘tragic flaw’ is taken from the Greek concept of Hamartia used by Greek philosopher Aristotle in his Poetics.Shakespeare’s tragic hero Hamlet’s fatal flaw is his failure to act immediately to kill Claudius, his uncle and murderer of his father. His tragic flaw is ‘procrastination’. His continuous awareness and doubt delays him in performing the needed. Hamlet finally kills Claudius but only after realizing that he is poisoned. His procrastination, his tragic flaw, leads him to his doom along with that of the other characters he targets. But Hamlet is not responsible for the events which complicate the plot. Fate, chance and supernatural also play a critical role in Hamlet. A similar flaw destroys Ravana of the Ramayana. Ravana was an embodiment of piety and matchless devotion to Lord Shiva, but his single weakness of lust for Sita caused his tragic end.
© 2014 IUP. All Rights Reserved.
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