Geoffrey Chaucer's The Nun’s Priest Tale as Mock-Heroic poem or mock-epic

Famous Mock-Heroic “The Nun’s Priest Tale” is one of the 24 tales that can be found in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. A Mock heroic poem or mock-epic is narrative poems which aim at mockery and laughter by using almost all the characteristic features of an epic but for a trivial subject.

“The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is told in the form of a fable. The priest tells of a roster in charge of hens closely relating to his own authority over woman. The fable is a mock heroic, which is a story that relates to an epic, taking a trivial subject and blowing it out of proportion. 

To achieve this style, Chaucer uses allusions or references to people, places, or events in history that appeal to a reader. Chaucer uses references of the Trojan War, the story of Adam and Eve, and cries from Roman matrons to demonstrate the trivial problems of Chaunticleer and Pertelote, face in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”. ↙ The subject in The Nun’s Priest’s Tale is a trivial subject because a cock and a fox can under no circumstances be regarded as having much importance or significance. But the style which Chaucer employs to deal with this subject that makes the Tale a Mock heroic poem. 

The Mock heroic tome is established at the very beginning, with the description of Chaunticleer. The author employs a series of superlatives. The diction used in this description has deliberate courtly overtones. In the dialogue also the Mock heroic tome prevails. 

The narrator heightens the Mock heroic effect of his story by a comic use of lofty similes. The best example is the three-fold simile in the lines which are a climax of the narrator’s last interruption between the fox’s seizing of Chaunticleer and the beginning of the chase the terrified hers produce a loud clamour as they see their master being carried off. This kind of inflation, or false exaggeration, is the secrete of the mock- heroic technique. 

Ash Wednesday ~ T. S. Eliot

In section 1, the speaker is set to reject all worldly things. In the first two stanzas, he rejects the hope of any fulfillment in worldly diversions, any potential for joy in existence, and acknowledges that the “one veritable transitory power” is insubstantial, prone to fading away into thin air.   

The whole prayer in Part II introduces paradox as the rhetorical form of the reborn subject, in recognition of the possibility of two truths existing as one. The Rose in the garden symbolizes this state rather well. It is, of course, a traditional symbol, but it helps to think of a real rose as well as the Rose of literary convention. The Rose of literature often symbolizes the perfection of an ideal love. 

Part III of Ash-Wednesday dramatizes the relinquishing of mastery in the figure of the spiral staircase and the ascent of the subject toward a new life. Although the ascent is spiritual, the struggle on the staircase is primarily moral. 

In Part IV he acknowledges that the ‘‘fiddles and the flutes’’ must be borne away. The new regime brings restoration and redemption from pain and despair. But it does not erase the pain. Indeed, in Part IV we are asked to be mindful (‘‘Sovegna vos’’) of the hurt of one in Dante’s Purgatorio (Canto XXVI), Arnaut Daniel, the Provencal troubadour.  

Part V backs away slightly from the personal engagement of the previous four parts to meditate on the status of the word of God, the Word in short, in a world where it is ‘‘unspoken, unheard’’. That the Word is not visibly potent in a secularist world may be a shame, but it is not fatal to the Word itself. The presence of the Word is not harmed by the fact that most are deaf to it. The poem acknowledges both the presence of God, even in his seeming absence, and the Word as revelation of His presence. 

The final part/part 6 poem returns us to the theme of transformation and to the voice of the uncertain supplicant. But instead of the causal relationship suggested by ‘‘Because I do not hope to turn again,’’ the restatement makes a subtle shift in responsibility. ‘‘Although I do not hope to turn again’’ moves from causality to concession. The subject is now better placed to accept the work of grace. He is able to see from ‘‘the wide window’’ something of the beauty of the world and a new lyricism comes into the text, ‘‘white sails . . . seaward flying,’’ ‘‘Unbroken wings’’ instead of ‘‘merely vans to beat the air’’ in Part I.   

The note of hope modulates into a quickening recovery from the despair with which the poem began. The prayer to the ‘‘Blesse`d sister, holy mother’’ asks for help in avoiding the self-mockery of falsehood and suffering of separation. The vision at the end is not transcendental; it cannot be defined as the desire to escape from the world into the pure bliss of the spirit. It was the Incarnation now put forward as the real meaning of faith. We cannot escape our human fate, but we are vouchsafed glimpses of holiness in the midst of the encompassing tragedy. This is not a special trick of the eye, it is what we see as an integral part of the reality we all share, if . . ., if we care to look. And the concrete reality that Eliot faced in the 1930s was not an ideal abstraction invented to house the new spiritual order. It was England and his life there in which the hidden order of grace moved.

Has Sweeny died in “Sweeny Among the Nightingales” by T. S. Eliot? Character of Sweeny.

“Sweeny Among the Nightingales” is written by T. S. Eliot. In this poem Sweeny is a character like playboy who likes to flirt with women. He uses women for his own physical need. When his demand is finished, he left them. 

Eliot talks about a Sweeney whose face is like an ape and he is sitting in a café spreading his knees. A waitress comes to him who wears a Spanish cap. She sits on his knee and wants to seduce him. But Sweeney doesn’t responding to her proposal. Because he thinks that it can be a trap to take revenge from him by falling him in danger.  When realizes about it, he pushes her aways from him. Then waitress feels bored. By her continuous activities to fall him in trap but she fails then she left when Sweeney pushes her away. 

Then second waitress comes to him whom the poet addressed by the name of Rachende Rabinovitch. When she sees Sweeney, she tweaks him. He suspects that Rabinovitch and the waitress with Spanish cape could be in a same group plotting against him. Though he is very drunk, his eyes become very heavy but due to his doubt, he leaves the café and stands outside the window leaning in and starts grinning to think about that he is successful to fail their plan. 

By that time, the pub owner sees that their first plan goes down, then he goes out and to talk Sweeney to let him busy. At that moment the two ladies come out from the café and stand behind Sweeney with knife with full of aggression. 

The poet does not clarify about the death of Sweeney. Here could be raise a question that is Sweeney actually died or not. But there is a hint the poem gives referencing Agamemnon. When Clytemnestra stabbed Agamemnon, he died. As the poet giving the reference of Agamemnon’s death sequence is Sweeney in Sweeney’s death sequence. So, it can be said that Sweeney has died.

Dylan Thomas wrote "After The Funeral" to give attribute his aunt "Ann Jones"

After The Funeral: Dylan Thomas writes this poem in memory of his beloved aunt Ann Jones after her death.  

 He starts the poem with the mule praises of the people who are crying artificially on the death of Ann Jones. The poet is feeling disgusted because of these crocodile tears and more over he is feeling angry because they are doing it in his aunt’s funeral. They are shedding tears that they have lost everything. But the poet is saying that there all are just fake and unreal. Moreover, they are happy because they are alive and just attend the funeral for showing off and for the feast. 

Now, poet is talking about his own story. Anyhow he goes asleep and he wakes up by the sound of digging of the grave. He just standing in front of the window, his eyes are like dry leaves, his heart is like a state fern where no emotions, feelings are not working. The death of aunt gives the chance to the poet to face the reality that death is the one and only truth of life and every living thing has to taste the death. √The poet tries to write a poem to give a tribute to his aunt because this is way he is best at. But now the words are stuck in his mind, not coming out through his pen. 

Then he starts memorizing the happy days and moments he passed with his aunt. Those glorious days make him cry, his emotions starts reflecting from his eyes like a wet window. He starts crying. √He starts remembering about his aunt that she was a lady of 70 years old with a golden heart. She was an honest religious lady who enjoys her life by helping every needed person but never shows it. She was so hard working that though her flesh was meek as milk but her hands were scrubbed due to heavy works. Ann was full of politeness with a wild breast. 

In this poem, aunt works as an inspiration for him and the poet finally successful to give her this tribute. He writes this poem in memory of his aunt so that the following generations could know her and her generosity through this poem.

Role of Chorus in Electra by Sophocles

The Chorus plays a crucial role in the overall development of any Greek tragedy; they are responsible for providing the overall background and summary information of the play, alongside they interact with characters to develop the personalities of characters and drive the plot. 

The chorus is comprised of the virgins of the palace. The chorus is important in determining the tone. The Chorus sympathizes largely with Electra. They lament with her when she suffers, and rejoice when she reunites with her brother and achieves her long-desired goal at the play's end. An interpretation that centers on the Chorus might condone Electra's actions. 

But the Chorus also gives Electra a hard time, especially at the beginning of the play when she debates with Chrysothemis about how to live their lives in light of their father's murder. The Chorus actually takes Chrysothemis's side – they encourage Electra to move on like her sister, to start thinking pragmatically instead of idealistically. This tension is important – the Chorus doesn't just reiterate Electra's ideas here.

In the beginning of the play, the chorus beseeches Electra to cease her constant mourning, and they attempt to console her in her suffering. this traditionally conservative stance is slowly eroded over the course of the play; at the moment of revenge, the chorus is an active and enthusiastic participant, giving urgent warning when it sees Aegisthus returning.

The chorus initially softens its stance upon hearing Chrysothemis relate Clytemnestra's dream. They regard the dream as an omen that the retribution for which Electra so longs is near, perhaps legitimizing their support of the heroine. The urge Chrysothemis, then, to do as Electra bids and throw Clytemnestra's offering for Agamemnon away, replacing it with one of their (the sisters's) own. Afterwards, the chorus is far more sympathetic to Electra than to Clytemnestra in their angry exchange, and the chorus is as distraught at the false news of Orestes's death as is Electra herself. The chorus's support of Electra and the revenge grows thus stronger throughout the play. One effect of this is to lend sanctity to the revenge, which itself seems increasingly questionable as Sophocles reveals news things about his characters.