Balwinder Singh

This book, "Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Shakespeare's King Lear and O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra as tragedies" delves deep into skein of tragic tangle to delineate how and why tragedy happens with man. It would explore what tragedy means. It would also highlight the paradigmatic shifts the tragedy has undergone right from the Greek period through the Shakespearean to the Modern period. During the Greek period, tragedy in the scheme of things was predominantly dominated by divine order. The plan and plot was almost preordained through prophecies and oracles. In Shakespeare's era, it was centered more on character of man. In Modern times, heroes got trapped in tragic traps due psychological problems and the concept of tragedy in its various aspects e.g. plot, character (tragic), thought, diction and other ingredients like masks and chorus, from the ancient times through the Shakespearean up till the Modern period, tragedy is all alive with its tragic impact intact.

Here laying more stress on modern tragic vision, it is generally democratized, but comparatively speaking this is more true of Arthur Miller than Eugene O'Neill's. O'Neill takes a much more perspicacious, psychological approach that renders the psyche bare and illustrates his view that science and its brainchild of materialism, offers no psychic balm or emotional solace to mankind. O'Neill's tragic vision thus doesn't man but, rather, lays bare the spiritual wasteland that he is in the contemporary materialist world. By contrast, Miller in Death of a Salesman attempts to affirm and reaffirm man within the confines of materialism - a concomitant of capitalism. Other canons of Aristotle, Sri Aurobindo, C.G. Jung, Joseph Campbell, George A. Kelly, Rollo May and Tony Wolfe have also been applied to make the critical study more effective and encompassing .

A critical study of the Greek tragic vision in the context of other plays taken for the purpose manifests that the conceptualization of tragedy has followed three paradigmatic shifts. The Greeks believed in Divine universe higher than the mundane which impacted upon the latter for good and bad in response to its own moral order and its canons. For example, Sophocles' Oedipus is fated to commit parricide and incest even before his birth. Euripides' Medea takes help from the sun-god. Aegeus goes to Delphi to know the reason of his remaining issueless. Medea is a sorceress and invokes the supernatural powers to kill her foes. In other tragic visions like that of Shakespeare's, Neoclassical and Modern tragic vision, it's is hardly so. The application of various perspectives of Aristotle, Aurobindo, Jung, Joseph Campbell, George A. Kelly, Tony Wolfe etc. would help us unfurl the skein tragic tangles in the life we human beings.

This book entitled, Walt Whitman as a Poet-is a critical study of some of his major poems. It will be beneficial to the general reader, the college and university student and the isolated teacher in particular who may find a conspectus like this helpful and useful for presenting Walt Whitman to his students. Keeping this point in mind, the author has accordingly assayed to present, in the light of recent scholarship and comparative trends in modern criticism, a critical commentary on Whitman. Author's criticism carries insight, sensibility and judgment of high order. His critical study has established Whitman in clearer and terser terms as, being the pioneer American celebrant of self in all its sweep and magnitude. The author pointedly shows how sharply this self-differs from the traditional religious self. His cartography of Whitman's self is done with flair.

The tragic vision judiciously lies embedded in the clash between morality and immorality . As such, immorality is more pronounced in John Dryden's All for Love. In this tragedy, all limits of immorality are broken. The hero Antony falls flat into the grip of the heroine Cleopatra .Whatever order, she gives, he blindly bows before her. Antony an awesome warrior is rendered all pale in front of her . What a pitiable situation. Antony was an expert in winning land-battles but at the behest of Cleopatra, he had to go in for sea-battle and lost and later out of shame had to commit suicide. Antony's situation comes to such a pass that even Cleopatra has to admit: "Sunk, never more to rise."(V.85) See the evolutionary trajectory traveled by tragedy. First it was fate, then it was character and now it's immorality that dragged the hero into tragic situation.

The book under the title, "The Evolution of SELF" in Whitman's poetry- is critical analysis of his major poems. The trajectory of growth of SELF while wading through the poems will surely benefit the serious readers, the college and university students and the interested teachers in particular. Keeping this in mind, the author has assayed to present, in the light of recent scholarship and comparative trends in modern criticism, a critical commentary on Whitman. Author's criticism carries insight, sensibility and judgment of high quality. His analytical study has established Whitman in clearer and terser terms as being the pioneer American celebrant of SELF in all its sweep and magnitude. The author pointedly shows how clearly and sharply this SELF differs from the traditional religious SELF. His cartography of Whitman' SELF has been rendered with sincerity.