Thinking Activity : Unit 3 : CS in practice

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This is my academic blog on thinking activity on cultural studies unit 3 cultural studies of Hamlet and To His Coy Mistress. This task given by Dr. Dilip Barad head of English department.

Q : 1 The poem 'To His Coy Mistress' tells us a lot about the speaker, the listener and also the audience for whom it is written. But what does he not show? As he selects these rich and multifarious allusions, what does he ignore from his culture?

Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" tells the reader a good deal about the speaker of the poem, much of which is already clear from earlier comments in this volume, using traditional approaches. We know that the speaker is knowledgeable about poem and conventions of classic Greek and Roman literature, about other conventions of love poetry, such as the courtly love conventions medieval Europe, and about other Biblical passages. The poem also tells us lot about the speaker, listener and also the audience but let we discus what does he not show?

• What does he (Arnold) not show? What does he ignore from his culture?

He clearly does not think of poverty, the demographics and multifarious allusions, and socioeconomic details of which would show how fortunate his circumstances are. For example, it has been estimated that during this are at least one quarter of the European population was below the poverty line. Nor does the speaker think of disease as a daily reality that he might face. To be sure , in the second and especially in the third stanza he alludes to future death and dissolution. But wealth and leisure and sexual activity are his currency, his coin for present bliss. Worms and marble vaults and ashes are not present, hence not yet real.

Q : 2 If these two characters were marginalized in Hamlet, they are even more so in Stoppard's handling. If Shakespeare marginalised powerless in his own version of Rozsencrantz and Guildenstern,Stoppard has marginalized us us all in an era when - in the eyes of some-all of us are caught up in forces beyond our control. 

In the play of Hamlet, there are two marginalized characters; Rosencrantze and Guildenstern. In the twentieth century the dead, or never -living,  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were resuscitated by Tom Stoppard in a fascinating re-seeing of their existence, or its lack. In Stoppard's version, they are even more obviously two ineffectual pawns, seeking constantly to know who they are, why they are here, where they are going. In contemporary Indian culture we can see that people was marginalized under the power of politics. No anyone can raise their voice against politics  democracy. 

      Thank you 😊