Classicism: A lens to the Age of Antiquity (8th Century - 5th Century BC)

 

The Creation of Adam (Italian: Creazione di Adamo), also known as The Creation of Man, is a fresco painting by Italian artist Michelangelo, which forms part of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling, painted c. 1508–1512.

What is Classicism?

Classicism is a specific genre of philosophy that expresses itself in literature, architecture, art, and music, which has Ancient Greek and Roman sources and emphasizes society. It was particularly expressed in the Neoclassicism of the Age of Enlightenment.

Classicism is a term used to describe literature that reflected the thoughts and ideas from Ancient Greece and Rome.

What is the main idea of Classicism?

The primary idea behind Classicism is adherence to ancient principles of art, chiefly restraint, simplicity, elegance, and harmony. These applied to all facets of art, including painting, sculpture, architecture, and literature.

When was the Classicism period?

The Classicism period lasted primarily through the Renaissance, the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. The Neoclassical movement involved the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Classicism laid a foundation for Western Literature in the coming times, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Image: The School of Athen by Raphael, 1509-1511 AD

Greek Classicism:

Greek Classicism laid the foundation for European Literature that began with the Renaissance and the majority of their works on Greek and Roman classical works. 

Major Writers of the Greek Classicism:

Homer: The earliest known Greek classical writer is Homer who described the famous Trojan War in his poem The Iliad. He also wrote its sequel The Odyssey, talking about King Odysseus' journey back home after fighting in the Trojan War. He lived in the times called the Archaic period also known as the Dark Ages. The times when there was injustice, slavery and people lived like animals. By the end of the 6th century BC, civilization began to flourish and there was a wave of poetry, philosophy, art, etc.

Famous Tragedians:

1. Aeschylus.

2. Sophocles.

3. Euripides.

Philosopher:

1. Aristotle.

2. Socrates.

3. Plato.

After a while, Greece politically declined and Rome flourished. Legends of Homer such as the Iliad and Odyssey were passed down orally. It was a phase of warrior princes, wandering sea-farers, and fierce pirates.

Major writers of the Roman Classicism:

1. Virgil: Known as the 'Father of Pastoral poetry portrayed a lot of value from Greek philosophies, such as Stoicism (importance given to duty and discipline), Epicureanism (importance given to pleasure, you live only once so - Eat, drink, and be merry, because present is fleeting), Skepticism and Cynicism (doubting everything, not believing in major values).

2. Horace: He mainly wrote Odes, Satires, and Critical Essays. Horatian odes were simple and talked about everyday life and situations. They were written in a conversational style. Whereas Horatian essays were written as a laugh and mockery of human follies and shortcomings.

3. Ovid: Ovid's most famous work is Metamorphoses, which is filled with love stories and adventures of warriors and heroes.

4. Seneca: Seneca was one of the famous tragedians of Roman classical antiquity. His works were mainly based on blood tragedies and revenge stories.

The Trick by Imthiaz Dharker

 

The Trick by Imtiaz Dharker is a poem that portrays the pangs of longing by taking you through the veils of alienation, yearning, love, and separation surfacing among its lines.

*Let's assume the narrator of the poem is the poet herself*

It begins with the poet talking about her mental state i.e. she feels the most awake especially when she's asleep. She goes on to describe how she wants the night to never end and hopes the day does not break so she can live a little longer in her sweet dreams. Passing through the verses we realize that the poet is talking about a lover that presumably isn't with her anymore. 

As it is written in a sonnet form we see that in the octave of the poem she flows through the feeling she experiences being with her lover in her dreams. Although in the sestate we see the poet growing restless probably fearing the dream may break and her being pulled back to reality. This becomes evident in the following quote, 

"Greedy for more than the gift of seeing you," meaning the poet does not only want to see her lover just in her dreams but also in reality.

  

It is a beautiful representation of the fact although distance makes love grow fonder, love also needs to be within tangible bounds at times to fulfill the lover's longing. We see how to poet tricks herself every night into believing that her love is still with her, blurring the lines between illusion and reality.

Themes: Alienation, love, separation, longing, human desire.

The Man-Eater of Malgudi by R.K. Narayan

 

The Man-Eater of Malgudi is an ironic tale of two contrasting men with their lives intertwined as a knotted bundle of thread. The lead character Mr.Nataraj is the saint-reputed printing-press owner of Malgudi, a sluggish South Indian Village, which is taken for a ride by Nataraj's miscalculated decisions.

The new-comer yet a highly entitled Vasu, is a taxidermist and an unwelcomed dweller of the attic above Nataraj's printing-press. 

The story begins with Natataraj describing his sundry activities early morning around the village everyday, along with small-talks with the passerby that know each other by their names. Sastri, an observing, elderly man, is the only help Nataraj trusts in his printing business with his expertise.

One fateful day, a beefy man, with bear-like paws and body, arrives at the press, demanding urgent printing requirement, his presence leaves Nataraj with stir and uneasiness and hence begins the circus when Vasu moves into his attic without even Nataraj officially agreeing to it.

Further in the story, we see that the dominating presence of Vasu not only affect the lives of Nataraj, Sastri, the neighborhood surrounding the street, Sen, the journalist and the poet, the usual visitors at the press, but also the whole of Mempi jungle uphill, where he shoots animals illegally for his taxidermy business, all sorts of dead animals from snakes, squirrels, hyenas to tiger cubs and what not are sneaked by him into the attic.

Nataraj (harmlessly cunning) executes most of his ferocious plans just in his mind not in reality. 

He inwardly plots on the ways to get rid of Vasu, whom he names 'the man-eater' but never really gets the gall to do so as he feels overshadowed by Vasu's towering persona.

Soon his old insecurities seem to creep out and he unwillingly begins to admire Vasu for his reckless, bully-like nature, someone who isn't afraid of anyone on earth, in heaven or hell.

Vasu who seems like an immortal-beast, the unbeatable, ironically falls victim to his own hamartia (tragic flaw): his physical strength at the end of the story.

The Man-Eater of Malgudi is a comical tale that portrays the lives of differing characters weaved in close-circles with each other.

Quotes:

"in Sanskrit which said that to deal with a rakshasa one must possess the marksmanship of a hunter, the wit of pundit and the guile of a harlot."

"Every demon carries within him, unknown to himself, a tiny seed of self-destruction, and goes up in thin air at the most unexpected moment. Otherwise what is to happen to humanity?"