EXT1--- THE OLD ENGLISH CLASSICAL WORKS THAT ATTRACTED ME

 BY  Pragyansharma  Polavarapu

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We generally  like good  classic English novels of old days like those of Oliver Goldsmith, Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens ,Jane Austin, Sir Arthur Connan Doyle, R.L.Stevenson ,Thomas Hardy, John Galsworthy etc and poetry of John Dryden, William Wordsworth, Percy Bische Shelley ,John Keats, Lord Byron, Lord Tennyson etc-and also enjoy reading many  good old American authors .Always first in  all comes the great William Shakespeare  for his majestic  dramas written in majestic blank verse reminding of slow march of elephants.The style and beauty in above writings   can satisfy even the new  scientific age . Such books  can create a new    international  reading taste among people of all countries.   

Every person's touch with the English language  starts with  English rhymes in early school  books and with  later beautiful ptose essays and long majestic poems of great English writers read in college days. In high school (1950s)we had always a small piece  from Shakespeare’s dramas. This reading habit continued with reading English newspapers, a habit in our house which existed for last 70 years . “The Hindu” and “ Indian Express” with their international pages,  giving weekly reports from Europe, US ,Africa,Australia etc were mines of knowledge .Being  immensely interested in international political events rather than in very slow national news ,  I glanced through the many  political and scientific and economic and engineering   journals in a big  library  which was luckily located near to our house.

In student community we can observe a great thirst for knowledge  . In India there was awakening from centuries long slumber .Now people require modern knowledge and go to books , the online versions of books,journals  and newspapers and  the  various encyclopedias--coming floating in the e/m waves with priceless old photos of famed people , famed historical places and geographical sites of great interest. There is knowledge explosion.  The on-line things are really a new boon to students. If only the atom bombs let us live on this planet earth!

Students already possesss good and deep reading tastes in English –science, politics,economics etc. We have great books and online knowledge bases about India’s  ancient most artistic ,literary and  and philosophic  traditions of 2000 years ago.All such books and reading material and online knowledge bases are available in English .Due to having  such English-oriented reading tastes many  people possess  a kind of eagerness to know about land of  England . 

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There was a  connection between India and England for 350 years from the times of British East India Company(EIC)-- the commercial association of “billionaire”  merchants of old England  formed with big support from the kings , rich noblemen,rich merchants  and  politicians . The  reason for forming EIC was  to get spices and silks from the eastern countries --- India , China and some far eastern islands . Even before EIC  and since the Middle Ages( i.e. since 500-600 years) or even from earlier times, spices were sold in European lands at high prices like gold. The silks of the East and perhaps gold ornaments of India were in great demand among noble  and  wealthy families of England and Europe. The famed “silk road” was a centuries- old  land route of thousands of miles . It required risky and laborious  travel among mountains, forests and deserts but the huge profits coming to the  western merchants and middlemen  fuelled the trade for  centuries. Very much later(in 1870s) the Suez Canal  was opened and it cut the distance  . The trade channels surely  were  windows on culture for both eastern and western people and provided a limited channel for   communication  between eastern and western societies . Eastern and Western cultures and customs were vastly different from each other.

Such was the ancient  world –far different from the present age of skyscrapers, jet travel, computers ,digital phones ,i-pads etc . Matters in modern age move at  speed of light . But still some people feel that only the Old World  is good with conservative serious view of life, high morals  and deep religiosity.  In old days there was  no pollution from CO₂,SO₂,chlorine etc. Radiation from radioactive substances was unknown. We have the great boon of modern science .We scientifically studied the “outer space” and  already  travel in it in a very limited way like  boats  crawling along coast of an unknown sea. We have the all- powerful computer which does even mountainous statistical work and book writing work in seconds . Such work took even weeks in old world.

But the  new world is a world of uncertainity -- without a strong concrete base in morality and philosophy. The new  world is a world of chemical  pollution, atomic weapons radiations which attack the DNA etc.

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We have great mythological epics –the Ramayan and Mahabharath . The West too has  two most beautiful mythological epics  --the Aeneid and Odyssey. Those beautiful stories were familiar from school days --school level story books with color plates of Greek heroes and Greek gods. They too are like  oceans of philosophy and poetry.  Good translations of these ancient western epics were made into modern English by the great poet  Alexander Pope( 1688-1744). It is interesting to note that most of the European peopoe except high scholars were not quite aware of  existence of these beautiful western epics   till Renaissance( 14th century AD   ). After seeing the beauty of these epics  people accepted  those books as their precious property and precious jewels