Siddharth Chauhan

A Critical Study of the Film Adaptation of Harold Pinter’s Play and its Pinteresque Dramatic Techniques Introduction This blog explores the film screening and critical study of The Birthday Party , a famous modern play by Harold Pinter. The play, first performed in 1958, is widely recognized as one of the most important works of twentieth-century British drama and a key example of the dramatic form known as the Comedy of Menace. Through seemingly ordinary conversations, sudden pauses, silences, and an atmosphere of psychological tension, Pinter presents a disturbing world where power, identity, and authority constantly shift. The story follows Stanley Webber, a withdrawn lodger living in a seaside boarding house, whose quiet life is disrupted by the arrival of two mysterious strangers. The play gradually transforms from everyday domestic comedy into a tense psychological drama that raises questions about control, conformity, and individual freedom. This blog post has been prepared as p...

“Voices in the Wind and Woods: Bob Dylan, Robert Frost, and the Poetics of Human Experience” 1. Comparison between Bob Dylan and Robert Frost 1. Form & Style of Writing Bob Dylan primarily writes song lyrics that combine folk music traditions with poetic expression. His style is conversational and influenced by protest music. For example, in Blowin' in the Wind , Dylan uses a repetitive question-answer structure that resembles folk ballads. Robert Frost, on the other hand, writes formal poetry using traditional structures like rhyme, meter, and blank verse. In poems such as The Road Not Taken and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening , Frost uses carefully crafted stanza patterns and rhythm typical of classical poetry. Comparison: Dylan's form is musical and performance-oriented , whereas Frost’s is literary and structured within poetic conventions . 2. Lyricism Dylan’s lyricism comes from folk music traditions , making his language emotional, rhythmic, and meant to be su...

 A Critical Analysis of Narrative Deception and Post-War Identity (Worksheet Sections 3 & 4) Introduction Assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad This analytical activity, assigned by Dr. and Prof. Dilip Barad, is designed to deepen critical engagement with An Artist of the Floating World . The focus of this worksheet lies particularly in Sections 3 (Analyzing) and 4 (Evaluating), which require students to move beyond basic comprehension and examine the novel’s complex narrative strategies and ethical dimensions. In this novel, Kazuo Ishiguro presents Masuji Ono as an unreliable narrator whose fragmented memories and self-justifications challenge the reader’s perception of truth. Through subtle shifts in tone, selective omissions, and contradictions, Ono constructs a version of the past that both reveals and conceals his complicity in wartime nationalism. This activity encourages students to analyze how Ishiguro uses narrative ambiguity to expose the instability of memory and the...

  A Comparative Study of Indian Poetics and Western Literary Theory from Rasa to Catharsis, based on the Lectures of Prof. (Dr.) Vinod Joshi Foundations of Indian Poetics and Aesthetic Thought Introduction This study is inspired by the illuminating lecture series on Indian Poetics delivered by the beloved and highly respected scholar, Prof. (Dr.) Vinod Joshi . Renowned for his profound scholarship and poetic sensibility, Prof. Joshi conducted a comprehensive series of lectures exploring the foundational principles of the Indian Knowledge System, particularly the rich tradition of Sanskrit poetics. His lectures examined major aesthetic theories such as Rasa, Dhvani, Vakrokti, Riti, Auchitya, and Ramaniyatā, while also situating them within broader philosophical and comparative frameworks. Drawing upon these insightful sessions, the present work seeks to extend his discussions by placing Indian aesthetic thought in dialogue with key Western literary theories, thereby highlighting t...

Fractured Realities: Art and the Crisis of Consciousness in the Twentieth Century From Expressionist Anguish to Postmodern Irony Assigned to: Megha Trevedi Introduction The twentieth century did not merely transform artistic style; it transformed consciousness itself. Movements such as Expressionism, Surrealism, Modernism, and Postmodernism emerged not as decorative aesthetic shifts but as profound philosophical responses to crisis — industrialization, world wars, the collapse of religious certainty, and the destabilization of the human subject. Where nineteenth-century realism sought to mirror the external world, these movements interrogated the very possibility of representation. Influenced by thinkers like Sigmund Freud , Karl Marx , Jean-François Lyotard , and Jacques Derrida , artists and writers began to question whether reality is stable, whether the self is unified, and whether truth can be fully expressed at all. Expressionism externalized emotional rupture; Surrealism pr...