The Effulgence Within

By anib - About Me - E-mail this page - Add to My Favorites - Add to Blog List - See other blogs in Religion & Spirituality

Thursday, February 19, 2026

Legion of Religionists (an old contribution of mine)

Hopefully I’ll be fit and fine now onwards, as I’ve now home after two rounds of stay in the hospital ICU. The first one, for a complicated spinal surgery and then two months later, having to be rushed to another hospital for a sudden huge drop in my oxygen levels which, for many would be most... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Significance of the Name Stephan Dedalus in James Joyce’s “A Portrait”

In James Joyce 's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus has been a spiritual exile from his social surroundings since childhood. When he is at the Belvedere College he champions Byron, Shelley and Ibsen. He is accused of heresy in an essay and sees himself "proud and sensitive and... Sign in to see full entry.

Monday, February 2, 2026

The Pathetic Old Beggar - Let Him Die Inseparably a Part of Nature

Wordsworth’s poem “ The Old Cumberland Beggar ” was composed in 1798 and published in Lyrical Ballads (1800 edition). It is a touching narrative of kindness keeping a shell of a man alive; while also an exhortation against the legislative measures to get beggars into poorhouses. Scoffing at the... Sign in to see full entry.

Thursday, January 29, 2026

Chaucer has been rightly called the father of English Poetry

Chaucer, a late medieval poet, has been rightly regarded as the "father of English poetry“. What makes him so singular is that without losing sight of the present he looked ahead towards the future. The modern “element” in Chaucer is noticed in his language, metre and his outlook on life. In respect... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, January 21, 2026

Tyrants, Monarchs, Dictators all Meet Nemesis on the Day of their Reckoning

Shelly’s Ozymandias (1817), is a commentary in sonnet, on the eventual short-lived nature of absolute power. Shelley, the Utopian, believed that tyrants, monarchs, dictators, no matter how powerful, do come to meet their nemesis on the day of their reckoning, and the language runs perfectly in... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, January 17, 2026

Wilfred Owen’s “Strange Meeting” as one of his Greatest Poems of Ugliness

Wilfred Owen’s Strange Meeting is a protest, not simply against war but against the glamorizing of war. If we think of it as a dream, it is founded on actual incidents of soldiers whom the poet saw die in the tunneled dug-outs. Strange Meeting” was written in 1918, just a few months before Owen’s... Sign in to see full entry.

Friday, January 9, 2026

Coleridge’s Imaginative Use of the Ballad Style

Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy … We see in the above lines of “ The Ancient Mariner” the medieval influence of the supernatural at work in the skeletal ship - the dicing demons on the deck evoking a fearful nightmare of... Sign in to see full entry.

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

No Sacrifice Can Ever Match the Greatness of a Mother’s

Ever since my complicated spine surgery was conducted on the 4th of this month, I now feel much better although my back sore will start easing fully only after 3 months or so. The doctor, Amit Chakravorty, 50, was simply brilliant. Today’s poem I wrote as a thanks-giving to all my well-wishing... Sign in to see full entry.

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

I will be away for some time

I’m getting admitted to the hospital today for a spine surgery which I long back sustained in a mini truck accident. The vertebra’s fell on one another and in the process has blocked three of my nerves. One other was found broken. The pain in the last three months has become severe. I have written... Sign in to see full entry.

Saturday, November 29, 2025

Tyger, Tyger, burning bright

William Blake’s The Tyger (published 1794, extra link for details) is a powerful and formidable poem. Judging by its surface meaning, the poem contemplates the fact that besides peacefulness and gentleness, the world includes fierce strength, terrifying in its possibilities of destructiveness. Blake... Sign in to see full entry.

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