WHAT IS THE MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND THE POWER OF LITERATURE?

WHAT IS THE MEANING, SIGNIFICANCE AND THE POWER OF LITERATURE? 

A great writer SHOWS the world and people in a deeper way. 

Normally, most people in the world at large, given the limitations imposed by societal pressures, do not have the inner resources to observe life and the world, on a deeper, clearer and more meaningful level. 

By default, people live out their psychologies with a complicated and unresolved mixture of whatever they were influenced by and absorbed. 

They miss out on a life that can be and ought to be, the kind that is lived with a great clarity, joy, meaning and power. 

Here comes the power of a great writer in any era. He shows stories with a greater level of observation and that is why, usually, they do reach a good audience too and in the syllabi of educational programs. 

They REACH the people and take them on a higher level. This has been, in fact, the way by which mankind slowly has developed till now and would develop in the future too!! 

The observations that a great writer makes are of the characters’ psychologies and the social, political, and cultural realities he is living in. 

He also gives the philosophical truth about life as such. A LOT is conveyed with a story and that is why it is so deeply entertaining, if studied with focus and care. 

In our selections, as examples, William Blake’s “Tyger” takes the reader to really wonder about existence, life, reality and other worlds AS SUCH. 

“Twelfth Night” by Shakespeare gives that joy of living lightly, and also shows that one person is not different from another. We usually differentiate people based on some narrow divisions of class, gender, position etc. Shakespeare shows directly and powerfully that these do not count, as each person is a real human being and not a stereotype. 

Reading “Gulliver’s Travels” really makes this silly world small and makes the so called “big bad world” almost look harmless by its sheer triviality and smallness. The reader himself becomes a giant like the hero. The reader realizes more consciously that one need not be so stupid and, by that very realization, rises to the level of Swift!! 

With Jane Austen’s, “Pride and Prejudice”, the reader is made more aware of how we all create barriers between us in love, and much more. 

With “The Importance of Being Earnest”, the reader becomes very intelligently satirical, and really sees the world with great cutting and laughing criticism, while retaining his lightheartedness!! 

All this and MUCH MORE is experienced with great stories of great writers simply because the great writer writes with greater depth of observation. People normally do not observe so much, since they live out their lives mechanically, as we said earlier. 

A writer is both influenced and influences the world and the reader is made aware of both. 

We should keep in mind that a great writer is not a superman or God. He too is a normal human being, living in a culture and usually having absorbed the limitations of that culture and also the positive points in that culture. 

But, at the same time, a great writer is superior in his observations and very powerful too!! He is able to, to a good extent, transcends his culture, thinks on his own and showcases a great originality, meaning and universality in his works. 

Now, when a reader reads a great writer, he takes in both, and both these aspects are useful, in a deep way, for him. 

He learns directly about cultures and that is great knowledge of History learnt in a direct way, as if he is going back in time. Also, he sees how that writer had risen above his culture and commented on it through a story. 

He learns both and benefits in a great many ways. He realizes that a person need not be limited by his culture and he sees the impact the writer made in the world, 

ALL this comes as a great experience!! 

A great writer also reflects on the culture and in his own unique way, brings out both the good points and the negative points in terms of philosophical truth. 

As has been already stated, a writer is critical of the world, with his greater ethical outlook and sense of truth and powers of observation. 

This helps the reader to be critical himself and develops the reader’s powers of observation and judging immensely. 

A great writer is both an artist and a philosopher and he is as much a human being as anyone, but with great insight, both as an artist and as a philosopher. 

We must remember that a great writer is both telling the truth and living the truth. So, obviously he will have many different shades, aspects, conflicts too within him and all this gets seen. This is not a negative point. By thus giving the gift of showing his naked soul, the reader sees his own soul, both, those aspects which match his own soul and even those that do not. 

He is made AWARE!! And. any psychologist will tell you, self- awareness is everything!! 

A great writer indirectly shows and makes known, with stark reality both what makes a human being and what limits the human being. 

Because the great writer is so vulnerable and revealing about his own real self, the reader is able to see fully and clearly, what gives strength and solidity to a human being and what is limiting him. He is able to reach great perfection, happiness, stability, self confidence and natural self reverence in his own life. 

Reading of many great writers makes the world known, as a whole - the past and hence the present and also the future, in a prophetic way. 

Because a reader usually reads many great writers, the great value given by each great writer, is multiplied hundred fold with hundred books!! 

Life becomes too clear to such a reader and he becomes, almost without knowing and just by reading, very comfortable on a very high level of energy, joy and clarity. 

Great writers teach, not by lectures but in an incredible way- by stories, poems and essays that are concrete experiences!! Just imagine the gift you get from a great writer. You do not have to do anything, only read and enjoy and experience a story. You get so much KNOWLEDGE, POWER, MEANING, JOY AND STABILITY THAT COMES FROM KNOWING LIFE FULLY!! 

A great writer gifts the power of great living to the reader!! 

The reader experiences the world in stark strokes – the whole social, political and psychological worlds. 

Reading many authors, he stands on a mountain top and sweeps the whole world with a single glance!! 

The avid reader is finally able to work out in his daily living, with great love and fire, his own first hand outlook on life, and that enables him to live a life of beauty and grandeur as a philosopher himself! 

All this and much more would come to the reader, by reading great writers. That is the reason why we have written this book and why we want to introduce, in a very deep way, hundreds of great works by great writers. 

The reader will have a deeper appreciation of all the above points after he has been introduced to the six great works and writers in this volume – 1 

Then, he can make a plan of reading the 6 works with perfection and surely take his life to a higher level of confidence, perfection, happiness and energy!! 

HAPPY DISCOVERY!!

PROJECTILES-2 (Master Advanced Physics)

Master Advanced Physics 

(For all Top Exams) 

PROJECTILES - 2 

Here the two motions are 

Ucos (theta) in the horizontal direction 

U sin(theta) in the vertical direction 

UCos(theta) = R/T 

0= USin(theta) - gT (v= u + at) 

H = USin(theta) T + ½ gT2 (s= ut + ½ at2) 

-U2 Sin2(theta) = 2 gH (v2 – u2 = 2as) 

So, 

Time taken to reach the Maximum Height= 

T max = USin(theta) /g 

( At H= Greatest height reached (theta is 90 and sin 90 = 1) ) 

H = u2 Sin2(theta) /2g = u2 /2g (sin(theta) = 1 ) 

Total time of flight = T = 2(USin(theta)) /g 

Equation of trajectory 

Y = x tan(theta) – gx2/2u2Cos2(theta)

PROJECTILES-1 (MASTER ADVANCED PHYSICS)

Master Advanced Physics 

(For all Top Exams) 

PROJECTILES - 1

Projectiles in Physics are simply bodies that are thrown up OR DOWN AND HAVE 2 DIMENSIONAL MOTION and their behaviours, mathematically or precisely. 

When a body is thrown up at an angle to the horizontal, then there are two MOTIONS. 

First, the body is moving according to its initial VELOCITY GIVEN. 

And second, the body is ALSO AT EVERY MOMENT, under the influence of Gravity, more precisely acceleration due to gravity. 

So there are two motions within the body. And each motion can be studied separately as equations and then both compared and resolved. 

THIS is the technique used. It is as if each motion is independent OF THE OTHER MOTION. 

So there are mainly two ways there can be a projectile, or a body can be projected basically in our topic. 

As shown, a body can be 

1) Projected at an angle 

2) Or a body can be thrown from a height horizontally. 

We have to derive equations for these two basic types of motion. 

We have a few other special types which we will see after we have considered these two thoroughly. 

Body projected horizontally from a height 

Here Projectile an object is thrown with an initial velocity u horizontally and it has two motions 

Motion due to its initial velocity--- is uniform velocity u as air resistance is considered negligible. So u = R/T ---Eq 1 

R = range, distance covered and T= time of flight 

Motion due to gravity --- here in the vertical direction 

initial velocity = 0 

final velocity = v (say) 

Acceleration = 9.8 m/s = g 

s= Height = H , T = time of fight , V= gT – Eq- 2 , H= ½ gT2 – Eq- 3 

V2 = 2gH – Eq 4 So 

Time of flight = root of 2H /g 

Horizontal range = u Root of 2H/g

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST BY OSCAR WILDE (APPRECIATION OF THE PLAY)

*** APPRECIATION OF THE PLAY ***  

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST 

BY OSCAR WILDE 

The plot of “The Importance of Being Earnest” centers around two characters, who is the same person! 

One a good man and named, Jack Worthing and the other, his so called brother, whom he himself has created. He does this to have the excuse to meet his “brother” in London city to have fun, and be freer and doing what he pleased. 

He is guardian, of Cecily Cardew, who gets to know about the brother, and secretly falls in love with the fictional brother, who does not exist!! 

Jack Worthing has a best friend, and this friend, Algernon Moncrieff, comes to Jack’s home one day, and sees Cecily and falls in love with her. He becomes Ernest to woo Cecily!! 

Jack Worthing actually loves Gwendolen Fairfax and she loves him and his name both. 

In the course of the play, Lady Bracknell, the mother of Gwendolen, asks Jack about his parentage, and he informs that he was found in a bag in a railway station by Cecily’s grandfather, Thomas Cardew, who had adopted him. 

Later events reveal that Jack is actually the son of Lady Bracknell’s sister. And his name indeed was Ernest John. 

There is a fun elements associated with the name, Ernest. Both the ladies, want their lovers to have the name and they even to go to change their names. Finally all are happy. 

This is a fun play and it makes fun but at what? 

It is not just light heated but makes fun at common morals of society and its emphasis on being serious and duty bound. 

Oscar Wilde deeply believed that life is very “state of the nature”, Man is both a sinner and saint and on a deeper level, man is just man, with all that he has learnt, acquired, chosen, by influences and has become, and yes, he does face consequences and there is an interplay and conflict between his morals and his innate desires and nature. 

He believed too strongly, almost as a determined mission that literature should show all that not bring morality and preaching. 

If a writer does that, truth, beauty and the natural - what makes life so special, full of meaning and love- is gone. That was his deep aesthetics. 

It shows in the beauty of language, the unserious way in which his characters speak and the full fun and yet deep joy that pervades the play. He thus believed that a play should entertain, and that it is not wrong, but the primary duty of a story to be aesthetic and not moral. 

Morality kills aesthetics. He not only believed that, he lived that and his plays fully reflect that. 

It most reflects in this play, and you can see the fun that is made around the very word, “Ernest”. 

He liberates without preaching, and is that not really, truly, what a living story should do? 

He was deeply modern, in fact, far ahead of his times and this play and his writings actually hide a deep loving and caring and life celebrating personality. 

He was deep within a beautiful being, and so are his plays such works of utter beauty!!

THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF OSCAR WILDE

THE LIFE AND GENIUS OF OSCAR WILDE

Oscar Wilde was that rare genius, who was highly educated in the classics, and developed a keen sense of the beauty of literature as against propaganda as such. He also made clear both in his writings, and even in his life, that a writer and a person must not follow conventional morality but develop his own sense of truth and morality. He was very modern, daring, open, and expressive and mission oriented not only about his works, but about literature as such. He had a unique view of what IS really beauty.

Early Life and Education

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was born on October 16, 1854, in Dublin, Ireland. His father, William Wilde, was an expert doctor and was also knighted for his contributions to medicine. 

Wilde was a very sensitive and intelligent child and was in love with books from early on. He studied in the Portora Royal School at Enniskillen.

He absorbed himself in Greek and Roman studies and fell deep in love with them. He won a series of prizes in school. He truly was a master in his studies. And what is more, he had a passion for great literature and understood the deeper significance of Literature like no other. 

He achieved this kind of learning very early and with absorbent mind, and obviously this unfolded as wings later in life, and also led to conflicts with a world that could not see his vision exactly. 

He graduated in 1871. Then Wilde got the Royal School Scholarship to attend Trinity College in Dublin. At the end of his first year at Trinity, in 1872, he stood first in the school's classics examination and got the college's Foundation Scholarship which was the highest honor given to under graduate students. 

Upon his graduation in 1874, Wilde joined Magdalen College in Oxford with a scholarship. At Oxford, Wilde continued to absorb himself in academics and won several prizes. He graduated in 1878.

Beginning years of his career and life 

After graduating, Wilde went to London and lived with a friend Frank Miles who was a portraitist. There, he concentrated on writing poetry and published his first work, called, Poems, in 1881. That book made him known among many writers. 

Then Wilde embarked upon a legendary lecture series, and he gave a staggering 140 lectures in only 9 months in the USA.

He met many great writers of his time, and had a great love for Walt Whitman whom he befriended. 

After his American tour, Wilde returned home and continued lecturing in England and Ireland till 1884.

On May 29, 1884, Wilde married a wealthy Englishwoman named Constance Lloyd. They had two sons: Cyril, born in 1885, and Vyvyan, born in 1886. He also edited Lady's World and took it on an intellectual level. 

His famous quote about that magazine was – “The Lady's World should be made the recognized organ for the expression of women's opinions on all subjects of literature, art and modern life, and yet it should be a magazine that men could read with pleasure."

Great Works

By 1888 Wilde felt a deep inner need and also was ready to what would become his masterpieces. He wrote the following works. 

The Happy Prince and Other Tales, a collection of children's stories (1988)

Intentions (1891) an essay collection in which he laid out his original theory of Art as beauty and not to propagate anything and in which all elements, the of the inner psyche had to be given freedom of expression. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray. 

This novel is a strange, very haunting story of a beautiful young man, Dorian Gray, who wishes for a portrait that reflects his inner world, and what happens to his life lives with pleasure and sin.

Then Wilde took to writing plays and he did a brilliant job of showing both the dark and the bright sides of human being but with laughter and satire and with great delightful entertainment.

His plays were 

Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892 

A Woman of No Importance (1893), 

An Ideal Husband (1895) and 

The Importance of Being Earnest (1895), his most famous play.

Personal Life 

Around the same time that he was enjoying his greatest literary success, Wilde fell in love with a young man named Lord Alfred Douglas. On February 18, 1895, Douglas's father, the Marquis of Queens berry, who came to know about the homosexual relationship and insulted Wilde. 

Wilde sued him and it backfired. The trial that followed brought him a bad reputation and he was also imprisoned on May 25, 1895 for 2 years.

Wilde, after being release, spent time in isolation and wrote on his prison experiences and, in 1898, published it as, "The Ballad of Reading Gail."

On November 30th, 1900, Wilde contacted meningitis and died. 

A strange life came to an end. It was a life full of academic reading, falling in love with the beauty of literature, developing deep relationships, including even a homosexual one, trying all forms, poems, novels, plays, and having a great number of lecture series to the world. 

It was a life full of love, passion, and in one word- life