English Cosmos by Dr Mukesh Pareek

Man is a social animal. But living in society is not an easy job. How one behaves with another, how he approaches another person and how far he is successful in playing his role in the society indicates his manners. So, broadly speaking, we can define manners to be well established standard of conduct on the social life. Man has to live carefully in the society. He should behave in a manner which pleases others. Manners and etiquettes are key to success. Although they do not cost anything, but they bring us valuable gains. They enhance the pleasure of life. One can win over even the enemy if he presents good manners. Good manners and etiquettes are key to success. Nobody is born with good manners. Everyone either learns or acquires them. The best place to harness manners and etiquettes is the home which is a miniature society and where the child spends most of its time. Child tries to stimulate its parents and elders in their behavior and slowly leans and acquires certain traits of cha...

Lycidas BY  JOHN MILTON Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forc'd fingers rude Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year. Bitter constraint and sad occasion dear Compels me to disturb your season due; For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. Who would not sing for Lycidas? he knew Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme. He must not float upon his wat'ry bier Unwept, and welter to the parching wind, Without the meed of some melodious tear.       Begin then, Sisters of the sacred well That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring; Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string. Hence with denial vain and coy excuse! So may some gentle muse With lucky words favour my destin'd urn, And as he passes turn And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud!       For we were nurs'd upon the ...

Lycidas " ( / ˈ l ɪ s ɪ d ə s / ) is a poem by  John Milton , written in 1637 as a  pastoral   elegy . It first appeared in a 1638 collection of elegies, entitled  Justa Edouardo King Naufrago , dedicated to the memory of  Edward King , friend of Milton's at  Cambridge  who drowned when his ship sank in the  Irish Sea  off the coast of Wales in August 1637. The poem is 193 lines in length, and is irregularly rhymed. While many of the other poems in the compilation are in Greek and Latin, "Lycidas" is one of the poems written in English. Milton republished the poem in 1645. SUMMARY  The poem begins with the speaker lamenting the huge task before him (memorializing his friend), and then invoking the  muses . Then, the speaker reminisces about how the speaker and a guy named Lycidas were shepherds together. Sadly, it turns out Lycidas is dead. Then, the speaker starts to address a series of figures from the Ancient world – nymphs,...

Hester is being led to the scaffold, where she is to be publicly shamed for having committed adultery. Hester is forced to wear the letter  A  on her gown at all times. She has stitched a large scarlet  A  onto her dress with gold thread, giving the letter an air of elegance. Hester carries  Pearl , her daughter, with her. On the scaffold she is asked to reveal the name of Pearl's father, but she refuses. In the crowd Hester recognizes her husband from Amsterdam,  Roger Chillingworth . Chillingworth visits Hester after she is returned to the prison. He tells her that he will find out who the man was, and he will read the truth on the man's heart. Chillingworth then forces her to promise never to reveal his true identity as her cuckolded husband. Hester moves into a cottage bordering the woods. She and Pearl live there in relative solitude. Hester earns her money by doing stitchwork for local dignitaries, but she often spends her time helping the poor and si...

Structure Epithalamion follows a rhyme a scheme of ABABCC, DEDEFF, and so on (except the 15th stanza.). The structure is 24 stanzas, each with either 18 lines or 19 (15th stanza has 17 lines). The last stanza is an envoy(a short formal stanza which is appended to a poem by way of conclusion) with 7 lines. There are 433 lines in total. Christian symbolism While the Greek mythology is used to express Spenser's undying love and wishes, the symbols of  Christianity  are used to express his intimate feelings. "How the red roses flush up in her cheekes, And the pure snow with goodly vermill stayne, Like crimsin dyde in grayne, That even th'Angels which continually, About the sacred Altare doe remaine, Forget their service and about her fly, Ofte peeping in her face that seemes more fayre," Spenser comments how Elizabeth is so beautiful to him that even the Angels would come down to Earth to look at her; and Elizabeth is so beautiful and perfect, she is the virgin to be sacr...

The story begins with the unnamed  narrator  arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. As he arrives, the narrator notes a thin crack extending from the roof, down the front of the building and into the adjacent lake. It is revealed that Roderick's twin sister, Madeline, is also ill and falls into  cataleptic , deathlike trances. Roderick and Madeline are the only remaining members of the Usher family. The narrator is impressed with Roderick's paintings and attempts to cheer him by reading with him and listening to his improvised musical compositions on the  guitar . Roderick sings " The Haunted Palace ", then tells the narrator that he believes the house he lives in to be alive, and that this sentience arises from the arrangement of the masonry and vegetation surrounding it. Further, Roderick believes that his fate is connected to the fami...

Epithalamion  is a poem celebrating a marriage. An  epithalamium  is a song or poem written specifically for a bride on her way to the marital chamber. In Spenser's work he is spending the day-24 hours- anxiously awaiting to marry Elizabeth Boyle. The poem describes the day in detail. The couple wakes up, and Spenser begs the muses to help him on his artistic endeavor for the day. He asks the nymphs to wake his sleeping love so the day can begin. Spenser spends a majority of the poem praising his bride to be. Which is depicted as both innocent and lustful. When she finally wakes, the two head to the church. Hymen Hymenaeus is sung by the minstrels at the festivities. As the ceremony begins, Spenser shifts from praising Greek Gods and beings to Christian language to praise Elizabeth. After the ceremony, Spenser becomes even more anxious at the thought of consummating the marriage. Spenser then rebukes any idea of evil that could ruin their new found happiness. Spenser asks...

Epithalamion  is an ode written to his bride, Elizabeth Boyle, on their wedding day in 1594. It was first published in 1595 in London by  William Ponsonby  as part of a volume entitled  Amoretti and Epithalamion. Written not long since by Edmunde Spenser . The volume included the sequence of 89 sonnets ( Amoretti ), along with a series of short poems called  Anacreontics  and the  Epithalamion , a public poetic celebration of marriage. Only six complete copies of this first edition remain today, including one at the  Folger Shakespeare Library  and one at the  Bodleian Library . The ode begins with an invocation to the  Muses  to help the groom, and moves through the couple's wedding day, from Spenser's impatient hours before dawn while waiting for his bride to wake up, to the late hours of night after Spenser and Boyle have consummated their marriage (wherein Spenser's thoughts drift towards the wish for his bride to have...

The Cloud " is a major 1820 poem written by  Percy Bysshe Shelley . "The Cloud" was written during late 1819 or early 1820, and submitted for publication on 12 July 1820. The work was published in the 1820 collection  Prometheus Unbound , A Lyrical Drama, in Four Acts, With Other Poems  by  Charles and James Ollier  in London in August 1820. The work was proof-read by John Gisborne. There were multiple drafts of the poem. The poem consists of six stanzas in  anapestic or antidactylus  meter, a foot with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. Analysis The cloud is a metaphor for the unending cycle of nature: "I silently laugh at my own cenotaph/ ... I arise and unbuild it again." As with the wind and the leaves in " Ode to the West Wind ", the skylark in " To a Skylark ", and the plant in "The Sensitive Plant", Shelley endows the cloud with sentient traits that personify the forces of nature. In "The Cloud...

The Cloud BY  PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. From my wings are shaken the dews that waken The sweet buds every one, When rocked to rest on their mother's breast, As she dances about the sun. I wield the flail of the lashing hail, And whiten the green plains under, And then again I dissolve it in rain, And laugh as I pass in thunder. I sift the snow on the mountains below, And their great pines groan aghast; And all the night 'tis my pillow white, While I sleep in the arms of the blast. Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers, Lightning my pilot sits; In a cavern under is fettered the thunder, It struggles and howls at fits; Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion, This pilot is guiding me, Lured by the love of the genii that move In the depths of the purple sea; Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills, Over the lakes and the plains, W...

The Importance of Being Earnest  Algernon Moncrieff  prepares for the arrival of his aunt,  Lady Bracknell , and her daughter, Gwendolen, in his stylish London flat in 1895. His butler,  Lane , brings in "Ernest Worthing" (who is listed as "John Worthing" in the cast list and "Jack" in the body of the play, although both Lane and Algernon believe his name is Ernest), who has just returned from the country. Jack reveals he has come to London to propose to Gwendolen. Algernon ridicules the notion of marriage, and says that before Jack can marry Gwendolen, he has to clear up the issue of Cecily. Algernon orders Lane to bring in Jack's cigarette case and shows the inscription: "'From little Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.'" Jack says his name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country. Algernon says he has always suspected Jack was a "Bunburyist," and now he has proof. Jack explains that Thomas Cardew, who a...

Redemption BY  GEORGE HERBERT Having been tenant long to a rich lord,     Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold,     And make a suit unto him, to afford A new small-rented lease, and cancel th’ old. In heaven at his manor I him sought;     They told me there that he was lately gone     About some land, which he had dearly bought Long since on earth, to take possessiòn. I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,     Sought him accordingly in great resorts;     In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts; At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth               Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied,     Who straight,  Your suit is granted,  said, and died.

is 1775, and Mr.  Jarvis Lorry  is traveling to Dover to meet  Lucie Manette . He tells her that she is not an orphan as she had been told from a young age. He now says that he will travel with her to Paris to meet her father, who has recently been released from the Bastille. Doctor Manette is housed in the Defarges' wine-shop and has lost his reason, but he starts to regain it when he meets his daughter and is transported back to London. Five years later, Charles Darnay is tried in London on a charge of treason for providing English secrets to the French and Americans during the outbreak of the American Revolution. The dramatic appearance of Mr.  Sydney Carton , who looks remarkably like him, precludes any positive identification and allows Darnay's acquittal. Darnay, Mr. Carton, and  Mr. Stryver  all fall in love with Lucie Manette, who was a tearful, unwilling witness for the prosecution. Although they all make an attempt to woo her, she favors Charles D...