11th Ward to receive PhD Degree

I am delighted to inform you that my ward, Vathana Fenn, has defended her thesis, “Blemish in Unblemished Landscape: A Study of John Millington Synge’s Plays” on 27/08/2013. She is my PhD 11th ward to receive PhD in English.

The following are the other 10 wards:

1. Dr.S. Beula Esther, “Alienation and Power Relations – A Post Structuralist Reading of the Blacks, Browns and Whites in the Novels of Toni Morrison’s The Blyest Eye, Caryl Phillips’ The Final Passage, Mulk Raj Anand’s Untouchable” (2006).

2. Dr.G. Ruby, “Poems of Robert Frost: Oikopoetic Dimension” (2008).

3. Dr.K. Premkumar, “Symbiosis in the Schemata of Tagore’s Poems” (2008).

4. Dr.Sri. Pa. Dhevarajan, “Fourth Estate : Social Values ( Role of Fourth Estate in Dispersing News and Media Accountability : A Survey of Selective Channels and Print Media)” (2010).

5. Dr.V.S.Murugaiyan, “Treatment of Realism in the Novels of Khushwant Singh” (2010).

6. Dr.Cheryl Davis, “A Derelict Man in a Derelict Land : An Ecological Dimension of V.S.Naipaul’s Novels” (2011).

7. Dr.Victoria Alan,“Women’s World Facing New Predicaments in the Works of Attia Hosain, Bapsi Sidhwa and Anita Nair” (2012).

8. Dr.K.Shanthi, “Ecoconsciousness in the Novels of John Steinbeck” (2012).

9. Dr.V.Sekhar, “Flannery O’Connor’s Short Stories: A Study” (2012).

10.  Dr. A. Sheeba Princess, “An Exploration of Space Relationships in the Novels of Patrick White” (2013).

Delhi University’s Course on Tamil Literature and Ecocriticism

Just thought of sharing this with you:

From this year onwards, Delhi University will also introduce a course on Tamil Literature and Ecocriticism. Here is the link for their syllabus:

web4.du.ac.in/FYUP/disciplinecourses/TAMILSyllabus.pdf

In this, Horizons: Critical Perspectives on Language and Literature. Edited by Suresh Frederick. Thanjavur: Amirthamani Publications, (ISBN: 978-81-920985-1-7) a book edited by me has been included in the “Desirable Readings” list.

Name of the article: Selvamony, Nirmal, 2011, “Tinai Poetics and Tamil Poetry”.

“The Garden” by Andrew Marvell

“The Garden”

by Andrew Marvell

How vainly men themselves amaze

To win the palm, the oak, or bays,

And their uncessant labours see

Crown’d from some single herb or tree,

Whose short and narrow verged shade

Does prudently their toils upbraid;

While all flow’rs and all trees do close

To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,

And Innocence, thy sister dear!

Mistaken long, I sought you then

In busy companies of men;

Your sacred plants, if here below,

Only among the plants will grow.

Society is all but rude,

To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen

So am’rous as this lovely green.

Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,

Cut in these trees their mistress’ name;

Little, alas, they know or heed

How far these beauties hers exceed!

Fair trees! wheres’e’er your barks I wound,

No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion’s heat,

Love hither makes his best retreat.

The gods, that mortal beauty chase,

Still in a tree did end their race:

Apollo hunted Daphne so,

Only that she might laurel grow;

And Pan did after Syrinx speed,

Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wond’rous life in this I lead!

Ripe apples drop about my head;

The luscious clusters of the vine

Upon my mouth do crush their wine;

The nectarine and curious peach

Into my hands themselves do reach;

Stumbling on melons as I pass,

Ensnar’d with flow’rs, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasure less,

Withdraws into its happiness;

The mind, that ocean where each kind

Does straight its own resemblance find,

Yet it creates, transcending these,

Far other worlds, and other seas;

Annihilating all that’s made

To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain’s sliding foot,

Or at some fruit tree’s mossy root,

Casting the body’s vest aside,

My soul into the boughs does glide;

There like a bird it sits and sings,

Then whets, and combs its silver wings;

And, till prepar’d for longer flight,

Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,

While man there walk’d without a mate;

After a place so pure and sweet,

   What other help could yet be meet!

But ’twas beyond a mortal’s share

To wander solitary there:

Two paradises ’twere in one

To live in paradise alone.

How well the skillful gard’ner drew

Of flow’rs and herbs this dial new,

Where from above the milder sun

Does through a fragrant zodiac run;

And as it works, th’ industrious bee

Computes its time as well as we.

How could such sweet and wholesome hours

Be reckon’d but with herbs and flow’rs!