EXT2---OLD ENGLISH AND OTHER MATTERS

 Pragyansharma  Polavarapu

 ADMIRATION  FOR  CLASSICAL OLD  ENGLISH LITERATURE

I write a few more lines about my very limited reading achievements in the field of old classical English literature(Shakespeare, Dr Johnson, William Wordsworth etc). I write about  a few  English books of high literary merit which I luckily read  and which secured permanent place on library racks and in readers’ hearts. Some are mentioned below.

 (a)The immortal works of  Shakespeare with their old  medieval world charm and majestic movement of words and phrases and  glorious  spiritual/philosophic /poetic meaning sometimes lively and optimistic and sometimes sad.

(b) The immortal works of William Wordsworth containing great and sublime nature descriptions  . Descriptions  of  gentle smiling  nature fill  the poet’s canvas.

( c ) The beautiful novels of Sir Walter Scott  in which pen pictures of  knights and daring heroic warriors riding the horse at wind speed, sometimes kidnapping a loved woman in a heroic warrior fashion, sometimes rescuing  a kidnapped wrongfully confined woman etc. The  warriors are seen (i.e. described ) galloping on  steeds at wind speed going on reckless rescue missions ,  passing  thick forests, hills and dales and passing beside  fast  streams or placid lakes.

(d) The novels of famed Jane Austen describing beautiful home scenes just as in modern day TV serials .Weaving stories as none other can, with feminine charm and at the same time  criticizing faults of society with a sharp mind.

(e)Thomas Hardy painting (with his pen)  most beautiful old rural scenes ,building plots like an expert mason and weaving  tragic stories as expertly and poetically as the ancient Greek  dramatists

(f)John Galsworthy  in  his simple easy modern racy English language  demonstrating beauty of modern English, and writing with a kind and cultured mind and feeling heart . He creates  modern day scenes of urban family  life  with all its multitudinous difficult problems  and  happy scenes. He keeps us fully and firmly in modern urban world (which we are now seeing on a vast scale everywhere  in India and Asia) and pulls us  completely out of medieval sceneries. Just read the stylish, simple, voluminous “Foresyte saga”.

I can not also forget Robin Hood , Treasure Island , Prisoner of Zenda, Prince and Pauper and Robinson Crusoe. I read the first two novels  decades back ,clearly 50 years back,  and in unabridged form.  There was a great “District Central Library”  quite near to our house within walking distance. It was like a  silent little  college functioning in  three or four halls with racks containing a few thousand  books.   I  read  the first two novels(Robin Hood and Treasure Island) in abridged editions at least ten times each . I can proudly say I  read fully the unabridged  wonderful novel Robinson Crusoe (in Everyman’s library cloth-bound edition ). It is such a wonderful philosophical novel of a brave lonely shipwrecked soldier  living in a cave in a  forest   for a long period . I saw the full length celluloid versions of Treasure Island and Prisoner of Zenda  on internet.

The wonderful thing I note in English novels is long nature descriptions of indescribable beauty almost in every old classical novel –whether Thomas Hardy, RL Stevenson, Sir Walter Sscott or Daniel Defoe or even Sir Arthur Connon Doyle. It perhaps indirectly indicates that Britain  has a mild weather and is a land of vast greenery and frequent rain. The bulky novel  Sir Nigel though fully filled with medieval world environment is very readable.

 

 The stories of all the classic novels without exception have  cultured  environment. Though there is  fighting and violence ,the scenes are  not ludicrous as in  modern  TV and cinema products . A few lifetimes may perhaps be  required  to completely read the unabridged editions of classical novels (cloth bound editions of Everyman’s library etc )

 Discussing about old English books  gives me great  personal pleasure and joy and   leads me to  reminisce about my old reading habit — reading the children’s novels about  sea adventures and pirates  like “ Treasure Island” by R.L.S tevenson.I read it several times with great enjoyment .

Let me submit to my readers, most respectfully, my undiminished  interest  in old English lore.  My main interest in life  is science and technology as I am a graduate of physics. But I joined a  job unrelated to science and this  gave a sharp turn to my life. In spite of my job unrelated to science , I read for years “popular science” type  books on  subjects such as nuclear physics, space technology, physics  and computer science . Joining a job unrelated to science depressed me for years but I  partly overcame it  by reading popular science books, reading science in online encyclopedias ,science journals etc. Here I may add a small story. Having missed the engineering college I missed becoming an engineer or scientist but worked as post master of the big post office situated in the campus of a reputed institute of technology. I got acquainted with many lecturers and assistant professors there and even could visit some laboratories and engineering workshops. For me the engineering institute was like a fairy land. I trained myself as  a small popular science writer for children reading on line science encyclopedias  and  intermediate level science books to refresh my knowledge.Now I have my own blog on science, history, philosophy and English literature.in a word I may say that after science my entire interest existed in English literature. It grew on like an endless appetite. There is a no time for reading books when one is in a busy government  job from morning to evening --- checking monetary vouchers on line on computer network and clicking “enter” to record the transaction in the central computer’s digital brain.

Sometimes we had to minutely examine a transaction  and decide on  the legality and accounting aspects  with the aid of the fat ruling manuals(now available on line) .  My morning on   many  days in those times of government service decades ago (when use of computer was in infancy)were   spent in glancing newspapers for international and scientific news, reading one or two  editorial articles, science articles etc.i also followed sports news and developments on economic and industrial scenes  both at national and international level .

THE INDO-ANGLICAN CONTRIBUTION

In the big district central library which I mentioned there were   great books in English by Indian authors and Indian philosophers and statesmen like Rabindranath  Tagore, Swamy Vivekananda,  Aurobindo Ghosh, Dr Radhakrishnan ,Jawaharlal Nehru, C.Rajagopala chari  and other  most distinguished scholars and intellectuals . There were   great writers like Anand Koomaraswamy ( “Dance of Shiva”), Raja  Rao (“Serpent and the rope”),RK Narayan creator of Malgudi village in his immortal novels.  I only glanced through a few pages of some books. But I read autobiographies of Mahatma Gandhi (My Experiments with Truth), Rabindranath Tagore and Jawaharlal Nehru in full. They are internationally famous. There are many Indo-Anglican writers. Who can forget Mulk Raj Anand’s short story “The Lost Child”, Dr Rabindranath Tagore’s “Babus of Nayanjore”or “Hungry Stones”  or his complex novel “Gora”. All the above  works  were  in  English and gained fame at international level.

There are too  numberless  books of very high literary quality and beauty in Indian languages. Most dealt in an extremely beautiful artistic and sensitive way with the Indian poverty and illiteracy, caste and social disparities  and  social exploitation  and sometimes painted pen pictures of the conservative society and some of the high moral principles that guided  rural India . They were first written in Indian languages, like novels of Sarath Chandra chatterji and Munshi Prem Chand , and went through several prints . They were translated  into all major languages of India . None in india is unfamiliar with  Dr Tagore’s Nobel Prize winning Geethanjali ,a book of poems of extreme beauty with deep philosophic undertones and is justly famous in world English literature.  Dr Rajagopala Chary’s English Ramayan and Mahabharatha ,famous for their moral and philosophical depth, were  reportedly   used in some American universities  as supplementary readers. Dr Rajagopalachari ( the last Governor-General of India just before India became Republic) has a razor sharp mind  and explains the relevance of the stories in the epics to  modern India’s muti-ethnic situation. These two mythological epics shaped the Hindu  mind (in ways of philosophy and art) for 2000 years.

There are scores  of great authors and  sharp minds  in modern Indian languages. One wishes they also focus their sharp minds on  subjects like economy, science and  technology, foreign affairs ,atmospheric  pollution, world militarism, nuclear wars, world trade ,world peace etc instead of composing  only love poems and unrealistic fairy stories. All major Indian languages have  great traditional literature developed since more than one thousand years.  But the terminology is tough laced with Sanskrit to a high degree and  has to be modernized . In all Indian languages a  standardized and very simple people’s version of spoken language should be developed. Such a standard version of spoken language has to be used (a) for university teaching ,(2) in teaching of science and in science research and thesis writing .But there should be only one set of highly standardized technical/scientific terms for entire India to keep Indian scholarship and science thinking and science writing unified. Much attention is being focused on this matter by sharpest minds in india.

English language,  since times of  Dr Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) was simplified, modernized and standardized . Dr Johnson himself led this standardization process .Many other outstanding linguists and writers and essayists were inspired and followed him. Let us hope  that  such efforts in all major Indian languages also take place to develop standardized spoken versions. Luckily the most powerful media of cinema and TV are playing a leading role in creating very simple sweet versions of all major Indian languages. Such  sanitization of  spoken languages is urgently necessary to speed up  progress of modern Indian languages to make all literature  accessible to all sections of people  .I may again add that  we have great poets and thinkers of  unparalleled  scholarship ,talent and artistic  sensitivity  in modern India . While saint Valmiki , the great incomparable poet Kalidasa and such brains adorned literature of  ancient India, we have great authors like  Rabindranath Tagore in modern Indian literature . Rabindranath tagore and Mahatma Gandhi had great  admiration for each other . Tagore was also a guide and philosopher to Jawaharlal Nehru the first Prime Minister of independent India. One wishes and prays that the modern Indian writers  write serious material about necessity of a new moral world culture  and about  high morality, equality and  scientific reasoning  and not solely love poetry and unreal dreamy  fantasies.

AGAIN THE GREAT OLD ENGLISH BOOKS

I recollect  again  for my spiritual pleasure some  classical   English works of literature which continues to dazzle the world with their  beauty. Some books I only half read and glanced through first  fifty or hundred pages. I read only concise stories of some novels.  I studied literary reviews. Now in the TV/computer/Internet days I  read dozens  of short reviews of books national and international. Though my  first interest continues to be science--(physics, chemistry, space science, computer science etc)---  English literature mainly old English literature  attracts me greatly.

My reading in English  is  very limited . I first mention about  my undiminished attraction for English poetry ---Wordsworth( ex:-The Solitary Reaper, Lucy Gray), John Keats ( ex:-the wondaful poem “La Belle Dame sans Merci”),Lord Tennyson ,the poet laureate of his time  ( ex:-Lady Clare ,Lotus Eaters   ),  Percy B. Shelley(EX:-“Wild West Wind” and “Skylark”), the famed critic Mathew Arnold ( :-“The Forsaken Merman) . I also remember well two other poems. One is the poem full of music  “Song for St Cecilia’s Day 1687” . It was written by the great poet   John Dryden (1631-1700),poet laureate of England of his time. The other is “The Deserted Village “ by Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774)—a poem about how village crafts were inundated and destroyed when the Industrial Revolution descended. We find a very similar situation in modern India now .

While writing of classical English literature , all our  praise goes to the great  William Shakespeare—one of the greatest writers of world. John Milton too is such a forceful author with a spiritual and moralistic Puritan base . I fully read end to end some good  classical books — Sir Nigel ,Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe,  Pride and Prejudice,  Mayor of Castorbridge,  Razor’s Edge, Foresyte Saga. I  read a large part of the voluminous Russian novel “ War and Peace” of Count Leo Tolstoy (translated into all major languages of the world). The great Russian writer-philosopher considered as one of the greatest writers of world.  The book  reminds us of the  great ancient Indian epic Mahabharata . The Russian novel too  has stories of both happy and troubled times in lives of princes in an all pervading aristocratic/militarist  environment  . First a big section on princely life, feasts, royal splendor. Then a descent into war   resulting in great sadness filling reader’s  mind with philosophical musings. The novel shows how even princely splendor  gets transformed in to sadness and mental emptiness . There are philosophical musings and suggestions  applicable to all human society.

I read a big bulky book “ Mary,Queen of Scots”  which told  of the tragic story of the  young rebellious Scottish queen . In the period when Queen Elizabeth ,the First  ruled England in 16^th century ,she was suspected of plotting for throne of  England and was  sentenced to death and was beheaded . It was all a story of royal plots and quick  happenings and is a gripping tale of royal plots. I read the book five decades ago and the stories still float in my mind.

 I read some parts of sir Winston Churchil’s  “History of Second World War”( in three or four volumes  I  remember ). It  contains rare declassified war documents and declassified war photos . The author and compiler  was the Prime Minister himself. To read it is a great experience. I also read another little book “Military history of World War Two” published in several parts—full of declassified war photos.  It was a most wonderful book of military history—not  forgotten even after five decades.

 I read some science fiction novels of HG Wells and Jules Verne in full –“Shape of Things to Come”,  “The Time Machine”,  “A Journey to center of Earth” end to end. They were read five decades ago .The futuristic ideas in them quite  fascinate though they are mostly of pre-computer era. It is said that it was Jules Verne’s idea to put  communication satellites in earth orbit to broadcas radio signals to earth.

*******

All my reading  was possible because of a magnificent “District Central Library “ near to our house in a district town near south Indian city of Hyderabad. It was a gold mine of English books suitable even for university research scholars. It had nice buildings with three or four big halls, long pillared verandas with dozens cabinets with bulky tomes and paperbacks,encyclopedias and other reference books. Above all there were  steel racks full of cloth bound English novels. The sight of them created appetite in me to read all old English novels . The books were so nicely printed.

There was an equally huge section of Telugu language works of great excellence. We had national and international journals. Later an Internet section with a dozen  computer  terminals was added to introduce students to “surfing”. Now  surfing is a big international intellectual activity  and has invaded even children’s schools and the home front. The laptop, the i-pad and the digital “cell phone” have made surfing so easy. There are now  computers in every house . Now “surfing” is everywhere—in buses,cars, trains and on streets . The police in every city of world have also identified a new secretive crime route in this surfing .The police are after the “ big expert surfers” to check whether they are doing any secretinve harmful activities . The police too have become expert computer operators to control surfing which is turning in some cases into a dangerous disease.

 Our district library was a  heaven like reading place . I remember I visted it almost daily for about 2.5 decades –first as college student and then as visitor at the end of strenuous office work to unwind and enter ordinary world in a fully refreshed way.

 I “came across” great novelists  only in the library hall --- Tolstoy, John Galsworthy ,  Thomas Hardy  , Charles Dickens , Sir Walter Scott , Somerset Maugham , Jane Austen etc . I read some work of Dr Samuel Johnson one of  the builder of modern English language . I read the famous biography of Dr Johnson  by James Boswell . I cannot forget Sir Roger de Coverly -- not any real person  but an imaginary eccentric character who frequented the  famed imaginary “Spectator Club”. Addisson and Steele the great essayists  wrote wonderful essays in sweet and majestic  classical prose and by making the Spectator Club popular in literature, helped create  modern English style. There are other great modern essayists  creating nice  modern English styles like AG Gardner, Robert Lynd etc .I came across their essays in my college  years in the prescribed compilations. I just read one or two poems of Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) a famed  poet of time of first World War who died very young . He was a very sensitive poetic minded  person. He fought in the war in British army.He was deeply affected by the tragedy of the colossal world war. His poems  possess  flower like sensitivity. I remember reading the most beautiful poem “Silver” by Walter De La Mare. I read it now in internet and find the small poem so enchanting. “Silver fruit on silver tree…”  “Silver claws and a silver eye…”

AMERICAN LITERATURE 

Then who can forget the great American authors-- the  Wild West novels and novels dealing with American wars with Red Indians. I write  only from the literary point of view .We   come across  many valiant fearless  Red Indians in the novels . I can not forget the travel diary “Oregon Trail”(1804)  the story of a military/scientific expedition to the old Oregon territory near the west coast of United States  ordered by the then President of United States. It is a most wonderful travel diary in wild territory and among red Indian tribes people. It is still a widely enjoyable readable book with adventurous journeys in wild territory .

 I  only glanced through works of great  authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne ,Walt Whitman and Edgar Ellen Poe and I realized their great strengths even from my incomplete reading of their books. However  I am happy to say that I read “Huckleberry Finn” most completely! It is a most enjoyable story written in a rather colloquial style by Mark Twain . It describes the beautiful childish ebullient  mentality of a mischievous little village boy! I have only vague remembrance of the book now after five decades. I read a few pages of Ralph Waldo Emerson the philosophic writer. I  read with great pleasure “The Walden” by Henry David  Thoreau  a great nature lover like William  Wordsworth and mystic philosopher.It was a small book packed with divine beautiful philosophy of the type of Wordsworth’s and I read it entire. I do not remember whether it was a book of “non-detailed study” of my college days and whether it was an abridged book I read. But it was a wonderful book.I read “Hiawatha’s  Song” written by  H.W.Longfellow. It is a most beautiful story of life of a red Indian  boy from childhood to becoming a youthful warrior and his  dialogues with wind gods etc .Recently I got hold of the poetry work of the most famous modern American poet Robert  Frost . he writes about the modern social situations –in urban, industrial  ,rural atmospheres -- in an  understanding philosophic  way. He also exihibits a beautiful love for nature just like William Wordsworth of the old world and shows great love for human morality and simplicity. All his writing is in utterly simple style in the style of English we speak now.He represents not only modern English or modern USA but modern 20^th/21^st century global world also. His work is  intellectual and  pacifying and philosophical. President Kennedy praised him as the most important representative writer of modern USA. His poem “ The woods are lovely dark and deep, But I have promices to keep..” is justly famous.

My gathering knowledge decades back was through “real” paper-made books and “real” newspapers and radio. I ,like other news hungry persons, used the   the transistor radio  which brought  crystal- clear newscasts from Hyderabad and New Delhi (AIR), London( BBC),America (VOA)! One felt the correspondents sat beside you in sofa. But after the TV  came  short wave radio transmissions is destroyed and decimated (for ordinary folks) .It  is now only through  computer, internet, i-pad ,TV to search for new interesting  ideas coming on global front through English . My present habit is to sit for hours at computer to write small articles on  science, history, computer ,temple travel,other travel etc.