Significance of the prologue in Goldsmith's anti-sentimental comedy "She Stoops to Conquer"

Analyse the prologue and write down its significance./ What is a prologue? Is it necessary in “She Stoops to Conquer”?  Edited by--R.Mahanty.

A Prologue, as per rule, is the beginning of a play inaugurates the purpose and the motif of the play. The prologue of “She Stoops to Conquer” is not an exception. The main purpose of the prologue was to revive the vivacity and vitality of true and genuine comedy. As the contemporary audience had had their inclination on sentimental comedy, David Garrick, a contemporary actor wrote a prologue to rejuvenate true comedy in Goldsmith’s drama—“She stoops to conquer”. The prologue was delivered by Mr. Woodward, a contemporary actor. A person forgets to laugh due to the influence of sentimental comedy. Sentimental comedy generally plays with the human emotions and made them serious.

Mr. Woodward, ‘dressed in black, and holding a handkerchief to his eyes’ entered into the stage. The black dress is a actually a funeral dress and it also symbolizes the melancholy and gloominess. The actual goddess of comedy is now lying on the death-bed. He is melancholy because comic art is sick and dying. He means that comic art is dying due to the growing popularity of the sentimental comedy. Due to the popularity of sentimental comedy, he may lose his bread. He is a comic actor after all. He gives the reference of Edward Shuter, a contemporary actor, also will be jobless  due to the overgrowing popularity of sentimental comedy.

He considers sentimental comedy as a woman of lower birth having no slice of morality. It is such a comedy that plays with the trivial emotions of a human being. He never can support the frolicsome and the frivolousness of such a comedy.  Comic actors like the speaker and Shuter would find it impossible to utter sentiments. They try to look grave and woeful in their countenance and utter moral maxims, but they cannot do so.

There is a solution however for the problem. It is called a ray of hope in this dismal situation. A doctor like Goldsmith has come to revive the dying Comic Muse. “A Doctor comes this night to show his skull./ To cheer her heart, and give your muscles motion.” “She stoops to conquer” is a comedy in five acts is considered to be a medicine to revive the true spirit of a genuine comedy. The speaker does not know either they will appreciate the drama or not because they are accustomed with the sentimental scenes of sentimental comedy. However, if the medicine is taken, he would be considered as a doctor.

The prologue is really important as it points out how the sentimental comedy ruled in the 18^th century. Actually the characters in a sentimental comedy are always pathetic wooden. They are removed from real life. This comes to defect the necessary elements like—wit, fun, humor. These are the essential characteristics of a genuine comedy. The main purpose of the prologue of “She stoops to conquer” is to create a humorous atmosphere. It appeals to abandon the artificial pathos, which is unnecessary, and to welcome the bathos.

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Thou art indeed Just, Lord

                                  “Thou art indeed just, Lord”     (R.Mahanty-9475981116)            

                                                                                                                                                                                   Hopkins’ “Thou art indeed just, Lord” was written in Dublin on March17, 1889. This sonnet is one of the terrible sonnets written at the final poetic phase of his life and this poem is also not published during his life-time. This sonnet is called as a dark or terrible sonnet because it deals with the frustration and the despondency of the poet’s life as well as of his poetic career. A gloomy mood of deep anguish is quite present in this sonnet. Everywhere there is a dark veil of pessimism.                                     

Comment on the significance of the title “ Thou art indeed just, Lord”.                                     

The title of the poem “Thou Art Indeed Just, Lord” is taken from the vulgate version of the Bible, Old Testament, Jeremiah, 12:1. The Latin epigraph in English translation means “ Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I dispute with thee: yet what I plead before thee is just: why do the ways of the impious prosper?”Actually the title obviously manifests the righteousness of God, the almighty. But the poet again here implies his own non-emotive-non life which is the another name of ultimate frustration.

                                                    Explanations

“ Why do sinners’ ways prosper? And why must                                                     Disappointment all I endeavour end?   Wert thou my enemy, o thou my friend”                                                                                        

  These famous lines are extracted from G.M.  Hopkins’ notable sonnet “ Thou art Indeed just, Lord”. Here the poet points out some sort of disappointment which has befall in his life. The lines record his genuine grief for being deprived of His justice, despite all his faith in and devotion to Him.                                                                                                      

                               The poet complains of God’s unjustness to him. He has served Him with honest devotion, but fails to enjoy His favour. He, therefore, argues with Him and disputes His justness to all. After all, despite all his sincere and dedicated service to Him, he has failed to enjoy, His favour. At the same time, he finds all around him how the sinner flourish while the true devotees like him, languish. To whatever tasks he may set himself, he finds only failure. Indeed, his earnest efforts bear no fruit and this leads him to doubt genuinely God’s justness. He is haunted and disturbed with the question how far God, the Lord of life and all, is just to all. 

                               The lines record the depth of unrest in the poets devoted mind. The poem was written particularly at a time of the poet’s physical and mental desperation. As a result, he raises here this cardinal question about His justness.

                                                                                                           

    “See, banks…………..send my roots rain.”

                            These lines are taken from Hopkins’ “ Thou art Indeed just, Lord”, a famous terrible sonnet or dark sonnet .Here the priest-poet’s physic aesthetic aridity has been exposed in stark opposition to the abundance of fruitfulness and productivity in nature and among other creatures .This finds a bold exposition in a note of complaint, though with due respect.

                        In this terrible sonnet from the last phase of his poetic career Hopkins, the Jesuit priest cum poet, complains against the indifference of God, the Almighty, to him, though he had dedicated his life to His service. With a view to focusing on his own infecundity, he points to the several sinners, who prosper at each spare moment, though they do not care a fig for God. For Hopkins divine grace is synonymous with imaginative creativity. This accounts for why he has become unproductive in a spectacle where the bushes and thickets revitalize themselves and where birds build and procreate. In stark contrast to this panorama of proliferation and fruitfulness the poet left in a desert of unproductivity and desolation goes on straining hard to give birth to ‘one work that wakes’. One understands that the image underwhich the priest-poet identifies himself is that of a tree in a desert that sends its roots deeper into the soil in search of water. This water at the symbolic level is divine grace which can only restore the fertility of the poet.                                                                                                                             

                            These lines combine sadness, despair and prayer. The agonized poet, though complains against the indifference of God, never loses his respect for his creator, because he knows that as a Jesuit priest it is his final trial after which there must be an illumination of divine love. Here is again a biblical reference. In the Bible a man is frequently compared to a tree.

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     (R.Mahanty-9475981116)