Socio-cultural User Experience (SX) and Social Interaction Design (SxD): The Socio-cultural Context in UX and Usability Design

Summary

This paper introduces the ‘socio-cultural’ dimension of User Experience (UX) and Interaction Design (IxD) with reference to emerging devices and related eco-systems.

Background

With the emergence of Google Glass, the topics related to devices infringing with personal privacy became hot cakes for tech-debates. Many social scientists, human rights activists have started to see the ‘Glass’ as the evil that reminds them with George Orwell’s ‘1984’. The fear of a ‘Google Big Brother’ controlling the major shares of the information world is seen as the intruder to private aspects of ‘the public’.

Fig1: The backlashes on Google glass has become one of the major discussion in recent tech world.
Example link: http://blogs.computerworld.com/privacy/22144/hey-dont-wink-me-glasshole-itbwcw

It is not the case that Google has not spent money on user research and usability aspects before going ahead with the concept of persons using glass that may change the way we interact with systems in our daily life. Usability wise, it is definitely a super gadget that has the potential to  catapult the device industry into next century. But the new features and interaction methods implemented in the device in a manner that is actually a decade old approach that is only fit for human-computer-interaction (HCI) in case of smart phones and tablets which have less tendency to hurt sentiments of those who do not directly interact with the device when the user might be performing some actions in a certain socio-cultural context. These sentiments could result in the fear of losing privacy , cultural distrust and humiliation among the second-hand users of the  device who are impacted indirectly in some way by the device actions in the context.

There is an interesting article on web titled “7 Innocent Gestures That Can Get You Killed Overseas”  that gives nice examples of various innocent gestures in daily life a  person can actually get him into trouble in a different socio-cultural context http://www.cracked.com/article_16335_7-innocent-gestures-that-can-get-you-killed-overseas.html.

Therefore it is high time to rethink in UX domain to discover the missing pieces which we think we have already discovered.

Socio-Cultural User Experience (SX) – the missing piece in UX

I have coined the term ‘SX’ aka ‘Socio-Cultural User Experience’ to represent the aspect of Usability Design or User Experience (UX) that deals with usability aspect of products/ software in a social context.

 

Fig2: The UX model is incomplete without its ‘social’ context.
To make usability design meaningful the model must follow the social context

 

Social and Cultural aspect of UX can be interpreted as a new component of UX – it is the missing piece that makes UX meaningful in social context.

Traditional UX model is centered around human user. But the critical factor that makes human being differentiated from other beings is his ability to ‘evolve and follow social standards’. The history of human growth is actually more clearly represented in the “history of human civilization”. So any product design must adhere to the social factor of design  and this is what SX is all about.

Considering the ‘Others’ in the User’s Social circle

The existing UX model does not analyze the need beyond the current user and his ‘type’ to do a usability test  — it never considers how it is impacting the other members of the society while the target user set is using the app/system.

For example, using car horn is a safety measure, but using it near a hospital or school is considered as unsocial and disturbing. There are many social check points that bar users of any system from using it in special socio logical context.

 

Fig3 : The no horn , camera, mobile phones and similar sign posts can be seen as a few of the social guidelines represented graphically on the use of different systems.

So implementing social context related restrictive design is even though new , is actually a age old tradition.

Criteria of a Good ‘SX’ Compatible System

Criteria of a sound usability design of an app on socio-cultural context:

1. Universal—has design elements that are universal.
2. Ethical – follows principles and approach that has positive ethical value
3. Non-racial – non biased and non-provocative attitude to user’s race and beliefs.
4. Respectful – towards user’s culture, social beliefs and ethnicity
5. Safety – has it’s social impact that is safe for the User.
6. Non-abusive – must not exploit the user and the environment he is in .
7. Common Sense – has geared towards common sense – behaves and reacts to the user in a sensible way
8. Protect Privacy – App’s feature and interaction must protect user’s privacy and other humans in the social circle.

Example of a Possible Enhancements to a Real Life Product via ‘SX’ :

Fig4 : Google Glass has an inbuilt camera that can take pictures.  

Let’s take the case of Google Glass.

Google Glass is designed in a way that can act as more personal than a mobile handset, as it is a spectacle and can be indispensable   accessory for the user once he gets addicted to it by replacing his conventional glass with it.

But the support for camera to take picture can pose a problem for the user to enter private areas, industrial areas, secure zones and offices where cameras are not allowed. In some places of earth, the cultural restrictions are in practice to ban cameras in certain places — most of the temples in India do not allow cameras inside. Now imagine, if the user has replaced his traditional spectacle for it , then he may find it difficult to manage without it in these scenarios.

So by following SX approach in usability design, the glass will require to have a “detachable set of camera” used in the glass so that the user can detach the camera and which would power it off and at the same time allow the user to keep on using the glass as a conventional spectacle.

This example may be just one of many features that Google glass might have, but it is enough to illustrate the approach in thought.

Social Interaction Design (SxD) – Helping IxD to Focus on Context and Environment of the User

I am using the term ‘SxD’ aka ‘Social Interaction Design’ that deals with the ‘social aspect’ of Human – Computer – Interaction (HCI) and Interaction Design (IxD) that  focuses on usability design in context of how the user is interactive with the app in specific socio-cultural context.

Points to Focus on while designing a SxD Compatible System

1. Provide multiple alternatives to the interaction methods to control the same functionalities in different socio-cultural context.
2. User should have total control over enable/disable of interaction methods for different scenarios.
3. The default interaction method must follow ‘SX’ approach.
4. Provide options to the user to switch between interaction methods with the system as and when needed.

1. Alternative mechanisms should be provided for physically challenged users. Rethink on the use of gestures and other interaction methods in the Article 508 context as everyday the new devices with unpredictable (not necessarily negative!) interaction methods and features.

Gesture and other Interaction Medium of SxD:

The ‘Social Interaction Design’ approach has the following major facets in the  system interaction towards the user in socio-usability context:

1. Facial Gestures—The selection of Human triggered facial gestures (e.g. wink, smile etc.) to activate the system or trigger any action in the system must be judged based on the canonical meaning of those gestures in social and cultural context of the user where he is going to use it.  For example, in case of Google Glass , the feature of “winking” (the gesture developed by Google Glass developer Mike DiGiovanni http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57582500-93/google-glass-code-lets-you-snap-a-photo-with-a-wink/  ) at someone to take a photo can pose a problem if the user is in India or Middle East countries. Even in western world winking at a lady or group of ladies (even though it is unintentional for any kind of abasement) can be taken as a negative action (e.g. weakness in character) and evoke anger and misunderstanding. So even if the winking to take a feature is a ‘cool feature’, in social context SxD will suggest the usability/interaction engineer to rethink on it to implement some options to ‘keep it disabled’ by default and allow the user the total freedom to use his judgment to enable and use the feature in any given socio-cultural context.Fig5: The ‘wink’ gesture developed by Google Glass developer Mike DiGiovann allows user to take a snap of the surrounding with just a wink of an eye.

    

2. Sound Gestures –  The selection of sound gestures – the use of voice or sound pattern to control the system should be examined for different user environments. For example blowing a whistle to activate a play functionality on a portable music player, or to open an SMS on the cell phone can be an interesting feature, but on the other hand if it becomes useless in a busy street or in a meeting room where a discussion is going on.
3. Touch based Gestures -   Touch, swipe and pinch are popular now a days as most of the tablets and smartphones offer this as a user friendly interaction method for the user. More devices are coming up which do not have any physical button rather a few multi-touch gestures are enough to fully control them. However ‘SxD’ stresses that the devices must be designed and developed with the interaction method that can allow alternative to the available touch triggered interaction mechanism.  For example , while developing a digital medical instrument with touch sensitive display, the interaction methods  should be carefully planned so that the surgeon can use the system without touching to avoid infections through contact with it while conducting any mission critical surgery.

1. Hand/Finger based 3D gestures – ‘SxD’ approach encourages to conduct a social analysis of the  hand/finger based gestures that are planned to be used in a system – the gestures should selected / innovated by carefully studying the cultural context avoiding common gestures used in daily life that are considered abusive to others. In addition to this practical usage resulting out of user’s environment and work culture must be given consideration. For example the middle finger gesture commonly used by youths to represent the crack humiliating pun on the other should not be used for any app that is expected to be popular among the users from the similar demography. But note that only considering the demography is not enough to decide the gestures.

1. Mouse /Keyboard Control – Similar to the gesture , voice and the related interaction method with system, mouse, keyboard, joystick and other typical input device based methods should be considered with in the context in which they are going to be used. As this group of interaction method are very old, many standard guidelines are already in there in practice. They However we need to rethink on them and make sure they are upto date with the ever changing human –computer-interaction domain.

Going Forward

Understanding usability is the first step in developing a successful system/software. However we need to understand the social and cultural implications of the UX implementations of the definitions of usability which we think is good for the user in order to   make our software truly complete and meaningful in all aspect. ‘SX’ and ‘SxD’ are the two missing pieces of this whole puzzle, which we need to discover in order to rediscover UX.

 

 

Download the paper from Slideshare :

http://www.slideshare.net/MobileWish/sx-overview

 

 

 

 

Jayanta Mahapatra’s “Relationship” is available for iPhone/iPad/Android and as Standard eBook Formats

 

 

 

Relationship by Jayanta Mahapatra.

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Jayanta Mahapatra needs no introduction. Any discussion on Indian English Poetry is incomplete without reference to his poetical works. Mahapatra holds the distinction of being the first Indian English poet to have received the Sahitya Akademi Award for the current book “Relationship”. “his international reputation has been compared to that of Wordsworth…”

The Hindu, Sunday, Jan 29, 2006

‘History’ in Criticism – the ‘Other’ Side of the Story (Part – 1)

[Fig: Michel Foucault]

Focault and his contemporary post structuralists might make it a part of his consciousness that ontological studies of literature leads towards a future of studies without a point of convergence, as knowledge necessarily entails power relationship – that the moment one attempts to define in strict tones some aspect of ‘text’, it becomes something else. Exploiting this power relationship of knowledge with the interpreter’s environment (which is essentially socio-political). Said in Orientalism, adopted a different methodological standpoint – the method of “historical generalization”. And after publication of Orientalism the subaltern poststructural critics like Spivak termed it as the “source book” for the related disciplines  to which she belongs. The reason to present this fact is that, I want to direct our attention to one distinguish point of today’s criticism – that the so called anti-historic criticism (like post-structuralism) lead the way to point a fault i.e. “ontological interpretation” is never free from bias and thus it gives way to ‘historical generalization’ or (more specifically) to ‘use of history in critical interpretation of texts’, to which it is totally against. That means, in plain words, through the structuralists and post structuralists, deconstructionist distorted history, by assigning it the title of a ‘system’ with changing ‘center’ (For instance, Derrida thought his articulation of his deconstructionist ideas as an event, and this he showed as a process of change of “center” – by replacing “metaphysics” with the “deconstruction”, at the center of our belief system), they later paved the way (through Focault’s theory) for a new mode of interpretation where history plays an important role – in post colonial, subaltern and Oriental studies (more specifically in the words of Said and Bhaba).

Thus the most interesting point that comes to our notice is the relationship between two modes of idealism – one that supports the use of history and the other that is totally against the use of history in the study of literature are infact are the two sides of the same coin. This point as we observed in case of modern critical theories, tempts us to examine its validity in every phase of critical history itself, and in the following I am attempting to give this temptation , a mode of reality.

(Continued…)

[From my essay with the same title written in December 2003]

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© Samir K. Dash, 2003

Formalism, Simplified

 

Filippo TommasoMarinetti

The Background:

19^th century Russian criticism was largely didactic. It was , primarily a weapon of liberal and later revolutionary opposition to the tsarist regime.

 

Towards 1890 (i.e. the end of 19^th century), there came the symbolism with Dimitri Merezhkovsky and Valerii Briusov. So, for the first time criticism became partly aesthetic , which took into its consideration the “suggestion” of words, the personal mood of poetic themes. Some , like Vladimir solovev saw in symbolism an opportunity for Russian religious thought, as symbolism provided the magic of revelation of higher values.

But then many saw symboliusm as a revival of Romanticism (as it opposed to Realism and Naturalism).

 

During such a period, there raised a group whose statements were based upon classicism under the name of “Clarism” and “Acmeism”. They were also more like Paranassians, who stress on clarity and emphasize upon objectivity and concreteness. In addition, during this period Marxism came to front, being formulated in the writings of Plekhanov and Lenin. And this Marxism was a kind of revival of didacticism and return to the taste of 19^th century realism.

 

Thus, the battle lines were drawn in 1910, as aestheticism, symbolism, Marxism confronted one another sharply. By this period the whole Europe (non-British), had been undergoing drastic change in literary theories, with a blurring distinctions among them, under the name of “Futurism” (Italian evolution) and Modernism is somewhat old term dating back to the middle ages in England. But in about a 1887, the form Die Moderne became a slogan of writers, whom we would classify as naturalists. But then this term modernism used widely, for instance , in Richard Ellmann and Charles Feidelson’s The Modern Tradition (1965) and in Irving Howe’s Literary Modernism(1967).

 

As far as “Futurism” is concerned, it developed in italy towards the beginning of 20^th century. In 1909 the major manifesto of futurism was published by Filippo Marinetti in Le Figaro (1909), which advocated the complete breakup with the tradition and aimed at new forms, new subjects and new styles in keeping with the advent of the machine age. They advocated the dynamism, the machine and speed, the patriotism and splendour of war. This towards 1920, became more aggressive and Fasistic as it created movements like Dadaism and expressionism.

 

In Russia this futurism along with “Cubism”, “Dadaism”, “Surrealism” and other Avant-Grade groups(Avant-Grade is a term coined BY Gabriel –Desire Laverdant in 1845 ) put their effect on the groups who were opposed to symbolism and aesthetic values in literature.

 

Following 1909’s manifesto of Italian futurism (by Fillippo Marrinetti), in 1912 the notorious manifesto ‘A Slap in the Face of Public Taste’ (signed by david Burlink, Alexei Kruchenykh and Velimir Khlebnikov) was published stating to “throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and all others overboard from the steamship of modernity”.

 

In 1926, roman Jackobson established the Prague school, which was influenced by this spirit (as well as by the Italian futurism). And this school believed in the rejection of organic, biological, “beautiful” form in favour of abstract, geometrical , stylized art and the machine. Other schools and linguistic groups like OPOIAZ (Scociety for the study of poetic language established in 1919) supported this, under the label of ‘Formalism.’.

 

The Russian formalists were primarily interested in the way that literary texts achieve their effects and in establishing scientific basis for the study of literature.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Theory

The formalist theory can be grouped under the following main categories:

 

1. The evolution of form:

The formalists collapse the distinctions between the form and content. They consider ‘form’ to be the result of two operations: (i) Deformation (ii) Organization.

 

Deformation means the change achieved by poetic language in contrast to the language of prose, patterning by the sound repeatations  and figures. But all the ‘devices’, must be used (e.g. like ‘plot’ in a novel is a device) in a systematic manner, or in other words organized.

 

Thus Russian formalists first studied the sound patterns, meters and compositional forms.

 

 

 

1. attack on poetry as “thinking images”:

visualization or the images in the context of poetry was according to the formalistic view useless. According to the formalists the visualization of any “metaphor” is not necessary. Rather the poem achieves its effects by the use of sound patterns, grammatical parallels and contrasts.

 

 

1. theory parallel to New criticism of America:

Formalists redefined the social function of art: “the purpose of art is to make us see things, not to know them. Art is there to awaken us from our usual torpor” . this reminds us about the theory of John Crowe Ransom’s insistence on the contrast of science and art, art being assigned the function of returning’the world’s body’ to us.

 

 

 

1. art is a puzzle:

formalists view art as a jigsaw puzzle. Frame stories such as The Arabian nights with their constant delays and disappointments adventures and mystery stories, detective novels with their riddles and surprises serve as example. This shows that formalists were more concerned with the form than the aesthetic human values.

 

 

 

1. the process of “automization” :

 

 

Formalists rejected the usual literary history as a ragbag of uncoordinated facts. As Norman Jakobson says:

 

 

The old literary historians remind us of policemen who in order to arrest a certain individual , arrest everybody and carry off everything from his lodgings and arrest also anyone who passed by on the street. The historians of literature use everything – the social setting, psychology, politics, philosophy. Instead of literary scholarship, they give us a conglomeration of homogeneous disciplines.

 

(Reprinted in Selected Writings 1979)

 

 

 

 

and formalists solve this problem by the process of “automization” – focousing on poetic diction and its evolution by wearing of f the novelty. Thus formalists put the study of the actual work of literature into the centre of scholarship.

 

 

 

Present status:

 

 

Many believe that formalism is analogus to the NewCriticism movement of America. But this is not true. Though many points match or resemble in both movements, the essential difference lies in the differences in ethos and emphasis. While formalists were aiming in being revolutionary, the other one lays stress on the tradition. Formalists were associated with more on science than in the interpretation.

 

The movement of Formalism died in 1930’s just 10 years after its birth , but it influenced the coming movements like Structuralism of Ferdinand de Sassure.

 

 

 

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The above post is taken from the book “A Beginner’s Guide to Modern Critical Theory ” by Samir K. Dash , First Ed (c) 2005.
All Rights Reserved. No part of the above poem(s) can be published any where in any form (electronic or non-electronic ), with out the written permission of author. However you can direct yours links to this page in your websites.
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Thought Castle

 

 

 

I don’t know

Why I long to own you

Miss you in the evening times

Sitting beside my books

With the neighbor of some blank pages

Waiting for some dark impressionsI would make on them

Sealing their fate, like you have made mine.

The dark impressions, on the sheetsLike ghosts of some unknown fear

– a fear I have reserved from you

The way I feel threatened

By the thought of losing you.

I know love is not my feeling

It is something deeper in me!

 

 
Feb 22, 2011

Jayanta Mahapatra received SAARC literary Award for the year 2009

Just got the news from Rabi Bhai that Jayanta Mahapatra has bagged the prestigious SAARC literary Award for the year 2009.

SAARC Literary Awards Advisory Committee consists of  eminent writers from all the SAARC countries as its Members.

To know more about jayanta Mahapatra you can visit his homepage: http://www.jayantamahapatra.com/

or check his biography at Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jayanta_Mahapatra

(photo by : The Hindu)

Fallacies for Advanced Readers

It was in the neo-classical age, when Pope aimed his bitter agonies upon Colliey Cibber – because he [Cibber] had severely criticized Pope’s earlier work – Cibber commented that once a writer writes something, it becomes no longer his own, and therefore he should not be sentimental due to the criticism that is to be made on his work , as a man who goes to the rain, should not be worried about being wet.

This is perhaps the best expression of mankind on the rising tendencies related to the field of judgement of literature. I say this because, the work of a critic and the criticism on it are two dimension of whole literary study, and every scholar knows that there is an age old conflict between these two to gain supremacy over the other. This fact that a conflict is going on is even not simply in black or white, rather it turned out to be in a range of shades of grey – i.e. the critical discussion of literature has atendency to diverge the aim with which one starts to enter into the process of critical evaluation of any work of art. We see from Plato’s time that the discussion of literature hangs over mainly two aspects:

1. What is the literature (or poetry )?
2. What is its aim?

 

But while analyzing literature, the supposed aim seems more blur and undergoes a process of shifting. The more one tries to reach at the aim, the more it slips back like a mirage. We may use post-structuralist views that each time the “signified” is replaced by a signifier due to the fact that multiplicity of meaning exists and a text can’t have ‘a meaning’. So, what I am trying point out here is that due to such “shifts” in our presupposed aim to find out truth related to any piece of work of art, there arises the errors , which the New Critics had, in their attempt to categories the end of their ideology, grouped under the common term ‘fallacy’.

All the well established fallacies, that have secured their seats in various glossaries of literary terms, such as ‘Affective Fallacy’, ‘Tragic Fallacy’, ‘Internal Fallacy’, are in fact some kind of the ‘conflict’ that I have mentioned at the very beginning of this paper.

This conflict between writer and critic can be seen as the junction where diverging paths of exploration to the studies of different fallacies are originated. And this was recognized first by C.S. Lewis, who termed this ‘root of conflict’ as ‘Personal Heresy’. In 1934, C.S.lewis published an article ‘The Personal Heresy in criticism’ in Essays and Studies, where he reacted heavily to E.M.W.Tilliyard’s view that poetry is a state of mind of the poet – a reflection of the personality of the poet. Then the replies and counter replies of the two were later came up in a single volume in 1939 under the title The Personal Heresy.

 

The seed of such conflict was there back in the 20s, in the criticism of T.S.Eliot and I.A.Richards. Eliot’s view on ‘tradition’ squeezed the personality of the author out of his work as he described the expression by the poet as the product of past authors’ dead metaphors, language, ideas, expressions, by which he concluded that there is no individual pure-contribution of the author present in his work. Richard’s dissection of human mind and its working in the context of literary creation and judgment presented the similar view. And these views were concluded as ‘Internal fallacy’ in 1946 by W.K.Winsmatt in his book The Intentional Fallacy (reprinted in his The Verbal Icon,1954),where he summed up the “age old conflict” and declared it an error to assign the possession of any of the either of the writer or the critic on any work of art – that a poem ‘is not the critic’s own and not the author’s.’ and it is concluded that the work of art ‘goes about the world beyond his [ author or critic] to intend about it or control it.’

This view was later made the ‘punch line’ of the readers response theory, that exploited the newly invented structure and post structural jargon to sell this very old wine in a new bottle. Each critic of the readers response theory used a shade that is not exactly black or white, but a ‘grey’ to tell the same old theory.

But the difference that was there in the readers response theory was that, it instead of talking about the conflict directly, tried to gossip on one of the aspect of the conflict – the ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ aspect of whole literary process from author to critic (or reader).

What we see here is how we slip from the original aim (we slip from focusing on the conflict to an aspect of this conflict). This ‘deferring’ from the soul aim is another kind of fallacy about which W.K.Wnsmatt, talked in 1954 in The Verbal Icon. This he termed as ‘Affective Fallacy’.

This fallacy is the error, which arises from the ‘deference’ from the ontological aspect of literature to a dimension which is relatively near to the centre of the discussion, but is in fact not the exact centre – ‘a confusion between the poem and its results (what it is and what it does).’

This critical error that ‘results in the mind of the reader’ is in fact the very base on which deconstructionist ideas are based upon. Derrida’s, Focault’s theories are always insisting upon  the ‘gap’ that exists between ‘signiufier and ‘signified’, which ultimately leads the ‘signifier’ to be a ‘zaum’ (Russian term indicating that ultimate truth can be never expressed).

And from this whole discussion, we can form a rough hypothesis that the knowledge (if seen as a ‘tantalization’) is in fact lacks any reason or logic to be expressede through any means  of articulation. But that does not mean that we must start to make our literature devoid of the sequence or logic, so that (foolish enough) our literature will resemble the experience. Because, that would be a process of unleashing. And what I am talking here in this very paragraph is all about another fallacy known as ‘Fallacy of Expressive Form’. This term, R.P.Blackmur  had adopted , from the observations of Yover Winters, who talked about ‘Heresy of Expressive Form’— that  stands for the error due to the attempt to express or or describe the ‘disintegration of a belief or a civilization in a chaotic form’. And Winters was on the view that though the world is chaotic, we must not use disintegrating form of mode of expression (such as Ulysses by Joyce).

Though Winters believed that it is impossible to discipline the indiscipline in any expression, I feel that after deconstruction theory, such a thinking can’t be any more a part of our optimistic consciousness, because no meaning is possible due to the absence of the centre in our belief system – no point of convergence exists – and which ultimately prescribes us just (to quote Edward Said)‘to attempt in spite of the impossibility of success’.

© Samir K. Dash, 2003

John Donne, a Philosopher?

R.W. Emerson describes Donne and Cowley as a poet with philosophical insight –

‘ Cowley and Donne are philosophers. To their insight there is no trifle. But philosophy in insight is so much the habit of their minds that they can hardly see as a poet…’

This statement of Emerson certainly puts some of us in trouble, who formerly appreciated the view that a poet is essentially a philosopher as the explorer of new truths of life as suggested by Sidney in his Apology of poetry.  This problem is enhanced by the fact that in case of Donne, the excessiveness of philosophy surpassed the natural reaction of a poet’s emotion to the outside world and he ‘can hardly see as a poet should the beautiful forms and colours  of things, as a chemist may be less alive to the picturesque’.

The modern view, that a kind of indifference that was created in minds of the grave diggers towards the dead body of Ophelia in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, due to excessive philosophical nature in them, is developed in Donne. So, Donne has the bad reputation of intellectualizing the things that are the property of heart. Like Hermion (a character in D.H. Lawrence’s Women in Love) , Donne intellectualizes everything regarding love, sex, and the similar. This tendency of his is due to also reflected in his choice and use of words which according to Arthur Symons ‘mean things, and it is the things that matter’ (Fortnightly Review, 1899).

The result of this kind of philosophical bent of mind in Donne costed him to loose his point in ‘Poetic scale’ of Literary Magazine in 1758.

 “As a poet he was disparaged either indirectly, as in Pope’s ‘versifying’ of his satires, openly as in the ‘poetical scale’ given in the Literary magazine of  1758. the scale gave a possible eighty points to the poets for ‘Genius’, Judgment, Learning, Versification […] Donne was omitted from the scale because although a man of wit ‘he seems to have been at pains not to pass for a poet’ ” (Introduction to The Metaphysical Poets, Case Book Series).

Donne’s poetry when explored structurally, it exhibits the tendency of a philosopher’s thesis – every time an argument is made which is followed by a kind of analysis and interpretation that attempts to prove the argument for its support. Joan Bennett, for this reason writes: “[…] thought of a mind moving from the contemplation of fact to the deduction from a fact  and thence to a conclusion” (The Five Metaphysical poets, 1964).

In such a structure, every point follows logically ‘one by one’, ‘step by step’, which because the leading characterizing element in defining the whole metaphysical poetic movement:

“The peculiarity of the metaphysical poets is not that they relate, but that the relation they perceive are more often logical than sensuous or emotional” (Ibid)

for instance in ‘Extaise’ , Donne first gives the images of the two persons (one lover with his beloved) in one state at ‘one another’s best’ –

‘Our hander were firmly cimented’;

‘Our eyes upon one double thread’;

‘all our means to make us one’;

– all these are infact the argument on the statement which is analysed and proved like a philosophical treatise in the rest seventy lines; of the poem with the lines like

‘[…] good love here grow all minde’ or ‘A single violet transplant,’.

Through these arguments he proves another point that how body is an ‘allay’ in getting ‘extaise’. Even when one reads ‘The Flea’, he is sure to notice how Donne’s double edged logic is put to use.

Thus Donne’s pattern has a fix line of movement. This pattern is like the mosaic where each bit is chosen with the help of intellect and reason  to produce a colour of thought (which is evidently the product of mind rather than of heart) that has shades in black and white, unlike the emotion portrayed by the poets, that spreads to any shades and hues of the foresaid complementary colours. One of such mosaic is diction and imagery in Donne’s poems.

Every learned person knows that values can not be forced even if conveyed with good intentions, and  no real integration of values can be achieved unless the learner is conveyed through a proper mode of communication. This communication mode , the key factor of all, differs with the use of diction and image and hence different subjects need different kinds of use of such – the meaning of which Coleridge and Wordsworth understood in their own terms. In case of Donne, the diction got a new make up in poetry. In Donne’s case the diction was shaped according to his new need, to prove his hypothesis through poetry – which many of his time could not appreciate . In Hazilt’s view this un-acceptance can be seen perfectly:

“[…] they thought anything was poetry that differed from ordinary prose and the natural impression of things, by being intricate farfetched and improbable” (Rhetoric, 1828)

But later these so called ‘metaphorical jargon’ of Donne, which according to Eliot spread ‘from the geographers globe to the tear, and the tear to the deluge’, got recognition as not far fetched, but the common element seen through a different perspective, which we might take for the philosophical point of view affected by raising of Mathematics and Science :

“It seems illegitimate, for example to conjecture that Donne’s choice of a compass [in order to illuminate how ‘our two souls’ be one] has some equivocal force use of lovers, […] . it is to us rather than to Donne that compasses are part of the common place paraphernalia of high school mathematics”(Tuve, Rosemund  — ‘The Criterion of Decorum’ , 1947 ).

© Samir K. Dash, 2005

Wordsworth’s “Ode on Intimations of Immortality”

In a letter written in 1814, Wordsworth referring to ” Intimation to Immortality’ ode wrote the following to clear his stand on the poem:

The poem rests entirely upon two recollections of childhood, one that of a splendure in the objects of sense which is passed away and the other an indisposition to bend to the law of death […]

[(Quoted in) Durant]

In a later comment, Wordswoth states that for a child, the world seems more vivid and has a strange charm, which an adult is unable to view. Wordsworth through his recollections tried to revisit that wonderland which he was more real for him than the present real world and it is on this recollection the Ode is based upon. Along with it Wordsworth has used many theories and myths regarding human existence. But it is sufficient to say that “From this starting point, the poem examines the whole story of humanlife as an excile from an earlier and more perfect state’ (Durant)

The primary point that the man lives in “less than perfect condition’, has been interpreted in various myths, one of which (and of course the most popular) is the myth regarding adam and eve in Bible. “This story tells us how through the eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, man first knows pain, guilt and anxiety’ (Durant).The Greek myth about Pandora’s box also narrates how the opening of the box by two children brought sorrows into the world.

Ancient philosophy also supported this myth indirectly. Plato’s adaption of Pythagorian theory states that the soul originally resides in the supernal region of the pure idea and when the soul is born, it enters into the “dark prison house’ of this world by losing its memory and thus goes farthest from heaven.

Though Wordsworth used this myth in his poem he doesn’t advance the argument in its favour. In Durant’s words: “The poem makes use of the myth of pre-existence, but this is not what the poem “means’ ‘ (Durant).

He more over adds that “In one sense the meaning of the poem is simple. The poet raises the question of the value of life itself, once the primal joy experienced in childhood gone by […] The first four stanzas are given to a statement of the sense of loss felt by the poet when as an adult he can no longer experience the unity of being and sense of illumination he remembers from his childhood’ (Durant).

In the first stanza he writes “There was a time’, referring to his childhood, when “the meadow, grove and stream, / The earth and every common sight’—- seemed to him in “celestial light’ which he “now can see no more’. This stanza infact describes poet’s lamentation (at least a kind of ) on not being able to see any more the “glory and the freshness of a dream’ that his childhood had.

Echoing What he said in the first stanza, Wordswoth writes in the second one that wherever he goes he knows “That there hath past away a glory from the earth’. The tone becomes more sad in stanza three and here the poet confess it in the line: “To me alone there came a thought of grief’ — and also provides the clue to the cause of writing this poem: “A finely utterance gave that thought relief’.

(c) 2005,  Samir K. Dash

Absurdity of Absurd: Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

What makes ‘Absurd’ mean ?When I searched the glossaries ,I found the word to be ‘out of harmony’(1).But yet the definitions trying hard to explain the term , just to end in total ‘Absurdity’ (assuming for a patch that we cognize the meaning of the word),as they talk in total sense, the nonsense just about it and of course that means they fail(in their attempt ).But considering the term to be connected with literature (and different forms of art too!),when I searched for much I came across the lines that states that no ‘literary criticism’ [in which I include the attempts to explain the literary terms] can take the literary activity itself ,or to be much specific ‘…it [literary criticism]is not substitute for reading the activity itself’(2),as it [the piece of work]is the most exactly and precisely ,the thought sent or explained.So,I reached the idea that to understand ‘absurd’ .I must view an absurd activity by an artist, rather than poring over the talks just about it. Thence as a literary student what 1st came to my mind at this instant is none, but WAITING FOR GODOT by Prophet Beckett,the so called absurd play structured about ‘Godot’,the axis all absurdity[as till the date none could declare with confidence ‘who’ or ‘what’ Godot is !]

What I found in the ash bin of my memories just about this godot is:

“On 19 Nov 1957, a group of distressed actors were preparing to face their audience . The actors were members of the institution of the San Francisco Actors’ Workshop . The audience consisted of fourteen hundred convicts at the San Quentin penitentiary . No live play had been preformed at San Quentin since Wife Henriette rosine bernard appeared there in 1913 .Now ,fourty four years later ,the play that had been chosen ,largely because no woman appeared in it , was Prophet Beckett’s WAITING FOR GODOT’(3). …”Beckett real triumph ,…came once WAITING FOR GODOT which appeared in book form in 1952,was 1st create on 5 Jan 1953 , at the little Theatre de Babylone (now defunct ),…’(4)

And I found as well several lines of this play:

“…

ESTRGON:Didi.

VLADIMIR:Yes.

ESTRGON:I can’t go on like this.

VLADIMIR: That’s what you think.

ESTRAGON:If we parted?That power be better of us .

VLADIMIR:We’ll hang ourselves tomorrow.(Pause)Unless Godot comes.

ESTRAGON:And if comes?

VLADIMIR:We’ll be saved

…”(5)

It is aforementioned just about Dramatist that once he was asked that what he meant by Godot he answered “If I knew ,I would-be have aforementioned so in the play”(6).’WAITING FOR GODOT makes not tell a story ;it explores a static situation ‘(7).So it is clean from the really beginning that Dramatist tried to create a ‘character’ with out a character’ as he himself doesn’t cognize him [Godot], and once much the movement of plot tends to zero ,i.e. there is dead no plot . Antecedently it was taken for granted that if there exits a literary piece then there must be either a story( or plot) to tellor any character to be delineate .But did exactly opposite to revolutionize his construct .He presents a ‘character’ whom he himself makes not cognize and tell a plot which is nothing but variations in arrangements and sequences of few events with negligible movement or action :’nothing happens , common man comes common man goes …’ (8).

But can be the term ‘Absurd’ appointed to but these qualities of the play? No, there are still much as mentioned by critics .In an essay on Kalfka ,Ionesco defined his understanding of the term as ‘ Absurd is that which is absent of purpose…’(9).And the purposeless becomes evident once ‘ the much things change , the much they are the same ‘(10).And this is done by creating uncommon situations in the play by Breckett . For instance the boy who carries message of Godot to Estragon and Vladimir fails to recognize them on each day of his reappearance .”The French version expressly states that the boy who appears in the second act is the same boy as the one in the 1st act , yet the boy denies that he has even as seen the two tramps before , and insists that this is the 1st time he has acted as Godot’s messenger’(11).And this is done patch ‘waiting’ which is understood by Martin Esslin as ‘Waiting is to experience the action of time , which is constant change . And yet , as nothing real ever happens , the change is itself an illusion .The continuous activity of time is a self defeating purposeless…’(12).

And thus by this meaninglessness Dramatist tries to prove the absurdity of his play .But is this actually absurd ? If we view it from several some point of views we can suddenly find thing contradicting . It is because we cognize the fact that ‘ truth is ne’er real’ ,and what we define for a situation becomes a truth for us , for that moment . So is the case of abnormality or normality of a situation . Once any action is most common that becomes ‘ normal ‘ for us and this is the really base of our understanding .We understand what is most common and general .We understand thing uncommon by referring it to several common things or actions we understand .So our really base of understanding is based upon several general truth or common events ,the state which we call normal .Now once we thing out of order in a play (e.g. WAITIG FOR GODOT) ,we interpret it in terms of those ‘ commons’ of our memory .But on this view we analyze , can uncommon or absurdity be perceived by us directly without any aid or reference to our definition of ‘normality’ ? It is similar to what Rene’ Wellek tried to explain in his essay ‘ATTACK ON LITERATURE’ by citing an example of Prophet Beckett’s ENDGAME .Becket has delineate a character in END GAME who was ‘ looking for the voice of his silence ‘(13).’The artist’s discontent with language can only be expressed by language .Pause may be a device to express the indescribable ,but pause can’t be prolonged indefinitely ,can not be just silence as such . It necessarily contrast , it necessarily a beginning and an end…’(14).
This statement suggests the importance of contrast and this is as true in case of absurdity and non-absurdity as it is true in the case of silence and music .
In this light we can reach decision that there is no sense of absurdity with out the normality . But how this is true in case of Godot can be analysed as follows :

Beckett tries hard to attain absurdity by doing through his characters , the abnormal things (or at least normal things in abnormal sequence ), still there remains the elements of non-absurdity in every corner of the play . The boy who doesn’t recognize the two tramps bring message from the same Godot (It ne’er happens ever that Godot brings a message from the boy ;or the tramps bring message from the boy to godot ;or tramps speak out the message that the boy brings from the Godot for them ;or Godot ne’er receives message from tramps and so many a can be the absurd case ).It was only one angle of interpretation of the situation .Other interpretations can be many a in amount :Godot waits for tramps ;or tramps don’t wait for Godot patch they say they waited. etc. etc.

When I mean to say is that some action is done in the play has there fore the elements of non-absurdity .We could have recognized them if what we call absurdity would-be be the most normal and what we now feel normal would-be have been absurd .In fact we can’t express absurdity itself and this is the deceiving nature of ‘Absurdity’ , because the moment we speak out thing it becomes a little several from what we originally meant to express . ‘Words , the medium of fiction ,are a fabrication of man’s intellect .They are a part of human lie ‘(14).And for this reason any literature necessarily that medium to be expressed , that becomes deceptive .So Roland Barthes of France says therefore that ‘Literature is a system of deceptive signification…emphatically signifying ,but ne’er finally import ‘(16).

There fore what ever actions Dramatist tried to fictional in to the play , stands till now between in the limits of absurd and non-absurd and how this action is nearer to any of these two limits depends on what words are used and how they are used to define the limits .

That’s why the play ‘..of the purportedly arcane avant-grade do so imidiate and so deep an impact on an audience of convicts…’(17),where as the critics could not easily accepted the play as an art in the beginning .

Martin Esslin writes : ‘ because it confronted them [the prisoners] with a situation in several route similar to their own ? Maybe . Or maybe because they were un sophisticated enough to move to the theater without any create mentally notions and readymade expectations ,so that they avoided the mistake that cornered so many a established critics who condemned the play for its lack of plot ,development , characterizations , suspense or plain common sense ‘(18).And of course this is what we see as the attempt to define absurd with non-absurd .Similarly many a different attempts have been ready-made in the past and present to create uncommon out of common .For example the Dadaist Movement . ‘Attempts have been ready-made not only to widen the realm of art ,but to get rid of the boundery between the art and the non-art . In music , noises of machines or the streets are used ; in painting, collage uses stuck-on news papers , buttons , medals and so on , or ‘found objects’ –soup cans , bicycle wheels , electric bulbs , any piece of junks—are exhibited . the newest fad is ‘earth works’ , holes or trenches in the ground , tracks through a corn field , square sheets of leads in snow . A ‘sculptor’ , Christo wrapped a million square feet of Australian lineation in plastic . At 1972 Bicnnale in Metropolis , a painter ,Gino de Dominicis , exhibited a mongoloid picked up from the streets as a activity of art .In poetry poems have been concocted by the Dadaists by drawing news paper clippings from a bag at random ; much recently poems have been create by computer and a shuffle novel (by Brandy Saporta ) has appeared , in which every page can be replaced by another in any order …’(18).

Similarly we can cite the example of Pop-Culture now so popular by the young generations ,which was once considered as absurd .So what conclusion we reached can be seen in the light of that contrast theory of silence and music told in this essay in the beginning , that what ever we want to express (may it be ‘Silence’ or ‘Absurdity’ ) we need words to express . But ‘a word can ne’er be a thing ‘(20).So we can either attain a situation or express it , but we can not do several because , if we try to do , the situation won’t be the same .This is what we can imply once we speak of absurdity ; i.e. we can’t be all absured in expression as there is no proper medium exists .

By closing this I think I have reached at the ‘ right place at the right time’ , because if I am right then I wish reach the right thing , but if I reach the wrong (as I wish get non-sense)that wish be rather a right thing due to our context . My attempt of criticism , ‘ is an attempt to do us much reasonable’

(c) 2005, Samir K. Dash