Critical Study of Edward Bond’s Lear

Edward Bond (1934–) stands as one of the most provocative voices in post-war British theatre. Born into a working-class family in North London and shaped by the visceral trauma of World War II bombings and the stark realities of military service in Vienna, Bond developed a worldview that refused to turn a blind eye to human suffering. He viewed the world not as inherently chaotic, but as a place where violence was structurally engineered by society.

Bond first gained notoriety with his 1965 play Saved, which shocked audiences with the graphic stoning of a baby. However, this violence was never gratuitous; it was an urgent political statement. As a committed socialist, Bond’s work serves as a fierce indictment of capitalism and class oppression. His 1971 masterpiece, Lear, is not merely a rewrite of Shakespeare; it is a radical intervention into the myths of power, authority, and resignation.

The Philosophy: Rational Theatre vs. The Absurd

To understand Lear, one must first grasp Bond’s concept of 'Rational Theatre.' Bond vehemently opposed the Theatre of the Absurd (represented by playwrights like Beckett), arguing that it preached a dangerous pessimism. If life is meaningless, then social change is impossible. Bond rejects this. He believes that human problems have rational causes and, therefore, rational solutions. He employs what he calls 'aggro-effects'—scenes of extreme, shocking violence—to jolt the audience out of passivity. The goal is not to entertain, but to force the viewer to analyse the social structures that make such violence inevitable. For Bond, art is a social act; the writer must be an activist, and the audience must leave the theatre questioning their own reality.

Summary of the play

Act I introduce us to a tyrannical Lear who is obsessed with building a massive Wall to keep out "enemies." He sacrifices his people to build it, executing workers without hesitation. His daughters, Bodice and Fontanelle, eventually overthrow him. However, their rebellion is personal, not ideological; they are just as cruel as their father, brutally torturing Lear’s advisor, Warrington, to protect their own power.

Act II details the counter-revolution. Cordelia (re-imagined here as a guerrilla fighter), leads an uprising against the sisters. During this time, Lear is imprisoned and put on a show trial. In one of the play’s most famous scenes, he witnesses the autopsy of his daughter Fontanelle. Later, in a bid to make him "politically ineffective," the new regime clinically removes Lear's eyes.

Act III presents the tragic irony of the revolution. Cordelia, now in power, becomes a Stalinist-type dictator who refuses to tear down the Wall. Lear, now blind but finally "seeing" the truth, tries to dismantle the Wall himself. He is shot and killed, but his death is an act of active resistance, not passive resignation.

Critical Analysis

1. The Wall as a Political Allegory

The central metaphor of the play is the Wall. It represents the paranoia of the modern state, the division of people into "us" and "them," and the futility of defence through oppression. Lear builds it to protect the people, but it ultimately imprisons them. The tragedy is cyclical: Lear builds it, his daughters maintain it, and the revolutionary Cordelia expands it. Bond argues that as long as the structure of power remains (the Wall), the ideology of the leader creates the same result: suffering.

2. The subversion of Cordelia

Bond’s most shocking deviation from Shakespeare is the character of Cordelia. She is no longer the symbol of divine forgiveness. Instead, she represents the failure of violent revolution. She has been raped and her husband murdered; her trauma transforms her into a ruthless pragmatist. By deciding to keep the Wall, she proves that a change in leadership without a change in social philosophy changes nothing. She becomes the very tyrant she fought against.

3. Violence as a Path to Insight

The violence in Lear—such as the knitting-needle torture or the scientific blinding—serves a specific purpose. It strips away the glamour of power. The pivotal moment of anagnorisis (recognition) occurs during Fontanelle’s autopsy. Lear looks inside his daughter and sees no "evil beast," only human organs. He realizes that her cruelty was not innate (original sin) but socially constructed—by him, and by the violence of their upbringing. This is the core of Bond’s materialism: we are made, not born, violent.

4. The Rejection of Retreat

The character of the Gravedigger’s Boy and his Ghost represent the temptation of
escapism. The Boy lives a pastoral, innocent life, but he is easily destroyed by the soldiers. His Ghost haunts Lear, urging him to stay quiet and wither away in peace.

Bond argues that this innocence is a lie; you cannot hide from politics. Lear eventually allows the Ghost to die, symbolizing his rejection of escapism. Unlike Shakespeare’s Lear, who hopes to "sing like birds in the cage," Bond’s Lear realizes he must act. His final gesture—digging at the Wall with a shovel—is futile in terms of physics, but monumental in terms of morality. He dies not as a tragic victim, but as a political agent attempting to break the cycle.

Conclusion

Edward Bond’s Lear is a demanding text that refuses to comfort its audience. It suggests that sanity in a violent world is not about adapting to the status quo, but about recognizing the madness of the system and attempting to change it. Through the blind king, Bond offers a glimpse of hope: that while the Wall is strong, the human capacity for rational understanding and resistance is stronger.

Text, Summary and Critical Appreciation of "Swimming Chenango Lake" by Charles Tomlinson

Swimming Chenango Lake by Charles Tomlinson

Winter will bar the swimmer soon.

    He reads the water’s autumnal hesitations

A wealth of ways: it is jarred,

    It is astir already despite its steadiness,

Where the first leaves at the first

    Tremor of the morning air have dropped

Anticipating him, launching their imprints

    Outwards in eccentric, overlapping circles.

There is a geometry of water, for this

    Squares off the clouds’ redundances

And sets them floating in a nether atmosphere

    All angles and elongations: every tree

Appears a cypress as it stretches there

    And every bush that shows the season,

A shaft of fire. It is a geometry and not

    A fantasia of distorting forms, but each

Liquid variation answerable to the theme

    It makes away from, plays before:

It is a consistency, the grain of the pulsating flow.

    But he has looked long enough, and now

Body must recall the eye to its dependence

    As he scissors the waterscape apart

And sways it to tatters. Its coldness

    Holding him to itself, he grants the grasp,

For to swim is also to take hold

    On water’s meaning, to move in its embrace

And to be, between grasp and grasping, free.

    He reaches in-and-through to that space

The body is heir to, making a where

    In water, a possession to be relinquished

Willingly at each stroke. The image he has torn

    Flows-to behind him, healing itself,

Lifting and lengthening, splayed like the feathers

    Down an immense wing whose darkening spread

Shadows his solitariness: alone, he is unnamed

    By this baptism, where only Chenango bears a name

In a lost language he begins to construe –

    A speech of densities and derisions, of half-

Replies to the questions his body must frame

    Frogwise across the all but penetrable element.

Human, he fronts it and, human, he draws back

    From the interior cold, the mercilessness

That yet shows a kind of mercy sustaining him.

    The last sun of the year is drying his skin

Above a surface a mere mosaic of tiny shatterings,

    Where a wind is unscaping all images in the flowing obsidian

The going-elsewhere of ripples incessantly shaping.

 

Summary

The poem begins with an autumnal setting where winter is approaching and will soon "bar the swimmer". The swimmer pauses to read the water's "autumnal hesitations," noting that the surface, despite its appearance of steadiness, is already "jarred" and "astir". This movement is influenced by the first leaves dropping, which anticipate the swimmer's action and launch "eccentric, overlapping circles".

Before entering, the swimmer observes the water’s surface as a kind of organized reflection, termed a "geometry of water". This geometry "squares off the clouds’ redundances" and creates a "nether atmosphere" where reflections are seen as "angles and elongations". Due to this clarity, every reflected tree appears as a "cypress," and every bush that shows the season is transformed into "A shaft of fire". Crucially, the sources emphasize that this effect is a "geometry and not / A fantasia of distorting forms," where the liquid variations remain "answerable to the theme", demonstrating a "consistency, the grain of the pulsating flow".

The shift occurs when the swimmer decides he "has looked long enough", and the "Body must recall the eye to its dependence". The physical act of swimming is violent to the image, as the body "scissors the waterscape apart / And sways it to tatters". Paradoxically, the cold water's "grasp" holds the swimmer to itself, and the swimmer grants this hold, understanding that swimming is a way "to take hold / On water’s meaning" and to move within the water’s embrace. This action leads to a sense of freedom that exists "between grasp and grasping".

As the swimmer executes each stroke, he claims a temporary "space / The body is heir to," which must be "relinquished / Willingly". Immediately behind him, the image that was torn "Flows-to," "healing itself". This surface is visually compared to the "feathers / Down an immense wing" whose shadow highlights the swimmer's solitariness.

The swimmer is "unnamed / By this baptism," but the lake itself, Chenango, bears a name associated with a "lost language" which the swimmer tries to interpret. This language—which his body attempts to frame questions into "Frogwise"—is characterized as a "speech of densities and derisions, of half replies".

Finally, the swimmer confronts the interior cold and "mercilessness" of the element, though this severity also shows "a kind of mercy sustaining him". The scene concludes as the "last sun of the year is drying his skin" above the surface, which is now a "mosaic of tiny shatterings". A wind is at work "unscaping all images in the flowing obsidian," highlighting the constant, involuntary motion of the ripples that are "incessantly shaping".

Critical Appreciation

The poem "Swimming Chenango Lake" gains its power from the precise handling of paradoxical relationships—between observation and action, structure and fluidity, and mercilessness and sustaining mercy.

Imagery and Precision

The language used to describe the water is highly specific and intellectual. The poet establishes the visual reality of reflections not as mere distortion, but as a formal "geometry" that orders the world. This elevates the scene, turning clouds into angles, trees into cypresses, and seasonal foliage into "A shaft of fire". This attention to visual mechanics ensures that the variations in the liquid are grounded in "consistency". The shift in perspective when the swimmer enters is sudden and sensory: the eye cedes control as the body takes over, shattering the previously stable image.

Thematic Exploration: Grasp and Freedom

A core concept is the exploration of how physical engagement leads to philosophical understanding. The act of swimming is equated with taking "hold / On water’s meaning". The swimmer accepts the water’s cold, physical "grasp". This tension between being grasped (held) and actively grasping (moving) is the source of the swimmer's freedom. The sources present the body not just as a tool, but as an agent that seeks understanding, occupying a transient "space" that it is "heir to". The readiness to "relinquish" this space at each stroke further emphasizes the meditative, cyclical nature of the experience.

Language, Identity, and Solitude

The most complex layer involves the theme of naming and communication. The swimmer’s experience is explicitly labelled an "unnamed" baptism, underscoring his solitude. Only the natural world—"Chenango"—retains a name, which serves as a gateway to a "lost language". The sources describe this language as opaque and difficult to interpret ("densities and derisions"), offering only "half-Replies" to the fundamental questions the swimmer’s body frames. This suggests that nature holds profound answers, but they are delivered in a code that is fragmented and ambiguous, requiring the body’s strenuous, primal effort ("Frogwise") to approach.

Conclusion: Constant Flow

The poem concludes by reinforcing the perpetual state of flux inherent in the natural world. Although the sun briefly grants the human body respite by drying the skin, the water itself is characterized by constant, almost indifferent, change. The wind "unscaping all images" in the "flowing obsidian" suggests that any momentary clarity or geometry is subject to immediate erasure and reshaping by the incessantly moving element.

Text, Summary and Analysis of A Letter (poem) by Dom Moraes

            A Letter 

        by Dom Moraes

Almost I can recall where I was born: 

The hot verandas where the chauffeurs drowse,

Backyard dominion of the raged thorn,

And nameless servants in my father’s house,

Whispering together in the backyard dirt

Until their talk came true for me one day:

My father hugging me so hard it hurt, 

My mother mad, and time we went away. 

 

We travelled, and I looked for love too young,

More travel, and I looked for lust instead. 

I was not ruled by wanting: I was young, 

And poems grew like maggots in my head. 

A fighting South-East Asia, with each gun

Talking to me; then homeward to the green 

And dung-smeared plains ruled over by the sun. 

When I had done with that, I was fifteen. 

 

At sixteen I came here to start again. 

An infant's trip, where many knew to walk,

I stumbled dumbly through the English rain, 

The literature, the drink, the talk, talk, talk.

I wrote about them: it was waste of breath. 

For many they were home, for me too wild, 

Too walled for me those valleys full of death 

Who had grown up as wanderer and child.

 

Of one dying poet I was not afraid 

In conversation like an avalanche,

Convincing mainly by the noise he made. 

He reinforced his views with gin-and-French, 

Wrinkled and heaving, tuskless elephant, 

He levelled a thick finger, grained with ink 

‘To love somebody, that is what you want.’ 

‘Yes’, I would say, accepting one more drink. 

 

Three winters I was drunk: one early spring 

Brought me first love for you, my great good news: 

Then my excuse to play the drunken king,

Staggering through bars, became a bad excuse. 

The naked valleys shaken with alarms 

Where hawk and serpent watched, were touched, and slept.

Morning and night your image in my arms

Taught me a harder task than to accept. 

 

Earlier in time I prayed to be forgiven.

Through tide-scurf to the acreage of the whale, 

Truest to loneliness my sail was driven. 

The westward haven of the traveller's tale

I have forgotten, making landfall where 

Chin in your hand, you sit, and gentle things 

Drift on your dream, transparent river where 

The swan sleeps with her young under her wings.

Summary, Text and Analysis of Africa by David Diop

             ------------------------------

Africa by David Diop

            ---------------------------

Africa my Africa

Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs

Africa of whom my grandmother sings

On the banks of the distant river

I have never known you

But your blood flows in my veins

 Your beautiful black blood that irrigates the fields

The blood of your sweat

The sweat of your work

The work of your slavery

The slavery of your children

Africa, tell me Africa

Is this you this back that is bent

This back that breaks under the weight of humiliation

This back trembling with red scars

And saying yes to the whip under the midday sun

But a grave voice answers me

Impetuous son that tree young and strong

That tree there

Is splendid loneliness amidst white and faded flowers

That is Africa your Africa

That grows again patiently obstinately

And its fruit gradually acquire

The bitter taste of liberty.

Text, Biography, Summary and Analysis of Self-Portrait (poem) by A K Ramanujan

Text

Self-Portrait

I resemble everyone

but myself, and sometimes see

in shop-windows,

despite the well-known laws

of optics,

the portrait of a stranger,

date unknown,

often signed in a corner

by my father.

About the Author

A.K. Ramanujan was a distinguished Indian poet, writer, translator, and philologist, born in Mysore in 1929. Raised in a multicultural Tamil Brahmin family where Tamil, Kannada, and English were spoken, he pursued an academic path, earning his MA in English from the University of Mysore. After teaching in South India, his interest in linguistics deepened, leading him to obtain a diploma from Deccan College in 1958 and subsequently a Ph.D. in Linguistics from Indiana University on a Fulbright fellowship. This academic journey culminated in his 1962 appointment at the University of Chicago, which became his professional home until his death in 1993.

At the University of Chicago, Ramanujan became closely associated with the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. His long-term residence in the United States profoundly shaped his writing, which often explored the "contrast between the East and the West" and the "anxiety of an exile" searching for native roots. His significant contributions as a translator and interpreter of Indian epics and devotional poetry earned him international acclaim. He was recognized with the Padmashri by the Indian government in 1976 and received the prestigious MacArthur "genius award" in 1983 for his groundbreaking work.

Ramanujan's literary output was diverse, including notable poetry collections like The Striders (1966) and Second Sight (1986), as well as significant works in Kannada. He became internationally renowned for his masterful translations from Tamil and Kannada, such as The Interior Landscape (1967) and Speaking of Siva (1993), and later focused on folklore with Folktales from India (1994). His poetry is known for its "psychological realism" and is largely autobiographical, drawing "substance" from his Hindu heritage and Indian folklore. His style is distinguished by "masterly craftsmanship," utilizing "precise, concrete, vivid" imagery and a "terseness of diction" that solidified his place as one of India's most significant poets.

Critical Appreciation

The speaker opens with a stark paradox: "I resemble everyone / but myself." This line immediately establishes a sense of dislocation. The speaker feels he is not a defined individual. Instead, he is just a collection of resemblances, alienated from his own core identity. This feeling is crystallized in the poem's central image: his reflection in "shop-windows."

This image clearly captures the "anxiety of an exile." The speaker lived between India and America, and in this reflection, he finds "the portrait of a stranger." The reflection should be an objective confirmation of the self, based on "the well-known laws of optics." However, this scientific law fails him. It presents an alien figure, highlighting his profound displacement. He is a stranger to himself. His "native roots" are distant, making his current self unrecognizable.

The poem's concluding lines brilliantly connect this personal anxiety to family and heritage. The lines read: "date unknown, / often signed in a corner / by my father." The "stranger" in the glass is not random; it is a portrait created by his father. This suggests his identity is not self-made but inherited. He is defined by his lineage and "Hindu heritage" rather than his own self. The father's signature implies a predetermined identity. This ancestral legacy overshadows his individuality. This idea connects directly to his biography, which notes his poetry "reminiscences his family."