Syntax-English Language-Internal Students of Rajarata University

In linguistics, syntax refers to the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. Adjective: syntactic.

More simply, syntax can be defined as the arrangement of words in a sentence. The term syntax is also used to mean the study of the syntactic properties of a language. 

Syntax is one of the major components of grammar. Traditionally, linguists have recognized a basic distinction between syntax and morphology (which is primarily concerned with the internal structures of words).

However, this distinction has been somewhat disrupted by recent research in lexicogrammar.

ETYMOLOGY

From the Greek, "arrange together"

EXAMPLES AND OBSERVATIONS

• "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."(Linguist Noam Chomsky created this sentence—which is grammatically correct but incomprehensible—to demonstrate that the rules governing syntax are distinct from the meanings words convey.)
• Chomsky on Syntax
  "Syntax is the study of the principles and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. Syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis."
  (Noam Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, 1971)
• Burgess on Syntax
  "And the words slide into the slots ordained by syntax, and glitter as with atmospheric dust with those impurities which we call meaning. . . .
  
  "It is syntax that gives the words the power to relate to each other in a sequence . . . to carry meaning—of whatever kind—as well as glow individually in just the right place."
  (Anthony Burgess, Enderby Outside, 1968)

RULES OF SYNTAX

"[I]t is a mistake to believe that some English speakers follow rules in their speech and others do not. Instead, it now appears that all English speakers are successful language learners: they all follow unconscious rules derived from their early language development, and the small differences in the sentences that they prefer are best understood as coming from small differences in these rules.

. . . The differences of the sort that we are looking at here follow lines of social class and ethnic group rather than geographical lines. Thus we can speak of social varietiesor social dialects." (Carl Lee Baker, English Syntax, 2nd ed. MIT Press, 1995)

SPEECH AND WRITING

"Many kinds of spoken language . . . have a syntax that is very different from the syntax of formal writing. It is essential to understand that the differences exist not because spoken language is a degradation of written language but because any written language, whether English or Chinese, results from centuries of development and elaboration by a small number of users . . .. In spite of the huge prestige enjoyed by written language in any literate society, spoken language is primary in several major respects." (Jim Miller, An Introduction to English Syntax. Edinburgh University Press, 2002)

TAXONOMIC AND COGNITIVE APPROACHES TO SYNTAX

"Within traditional grammar, the syntax of a language is described in terms of a taxonomy (i.e. the classificatory list) of the range of different types of syntactic structures found in the language. The central assumption underpinning syntactic analysis in traditional grammar is that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of constituents (i.e. syntactic units), each of which belongs to a specific grammatical category and serves a specific grammatical function.

Given this assumption, the task of the linguist analysing the syntactic structure of any given type of sentence is to identify each of the constituents in the sentence, and (for each constituent) to say what category it belongs to and what function it serves. . . .

"In contrast to the taxonomic approach adopted in traditional grammar, [Noam] Chomsky takes a cognitive approach to the study of grammar. For Chomsky, the goal of the linguist is to determine what it is that native speakers know about their native language which enables them to speak and understand the language fluently: hence, the study of language is part of the wider study of cognition (i.e. what human beings know). In a fairly obvious sense, any native speaker of a language can be said to knowthe grammar of his or her native language." (Andrew Radford, English Syntax: An Introduction.

Cambridge University Press, 2004)

SYNTACTIC CHANGES IN ENGLISH

"Syntactic change—change in the form and order of words—is . . . sometimes described as 'an elusive process as compared to sound change.' Its apparently puzzling nature is partly due to its variety. Word endings can be modified. Chaucer's line And smale foweles maken melodye shows that English has changed several of them in the last 600 years. The behaviour of verbs can alter. Middle English I kan a noble tale 'I know a fine story' reveals that can could once be used as a main verb with a direct object. And word order may switch. The proverb Whoever loved that loved not at first sight? indicates that English negatives could once be placed after main verbs. These are just a random sample of syntactic changes which have occurred in English in the last half-millennium or so." (Jean Aitchison, Language Change: Progress or Decay?3rd ed. Cambridge University Press, 2001)

WILLIAM COBBETT ON SYNTAX (1818)

"Syntax is a word which comes from the Greek. It means, in that language, the joining of several things together; and, as used by grammarians, it means those principles and rules which teach us how to put words together so as to form sentences. It means, in short, sentence-making. Having been taught by the rules of Etymology what are the relationships of words, how words grow out of each other, how they are varied in their letters in order to correspond with the variation in the circumstances to which they apply, Syntax will teach you how to give all your words their proper situations or places, when you come to put them together into sentences."
(William Cobbett, A Grammar of the English Language in a Series of Letters: Intended for the Use of Schools and of Young Persons in General, but More Especially for the Use of Soldiers, Sailors, Apprentices, and Plough-Boys, 1818)

THE LIGHTER SIDE OF SYNTAX

"In a second-class car, along with some abandoned homework, [Trevor] found a much-disintegrated copy of Finnegans Wake (James Joyce; 1939), a novel that, when he opened it and selected a random paragraph, made him feel like he'd just had a stroke.

He spoke English, but this didn't feel like English—it felt like sound effects. Still, the paragraph burned itself into his brain.

Sian is too tall for Shemus as Airdie is fiery for Joachem. Two toughnecks still act gettable, and feign that as an embryo he was worthy of starving (he was an outlier straddling the walls of Donegal and Sligo, and a vassal to Corporal. Mr. Llyrfoxh Cleath was among his savoured invitations) but every fair thee well to night blindness came uninvited. He was in the wilds of the city of today; coals that his night-embered life will not beg being anthologized in black and white. Adding lies and jest together, two toughneck shots may be made at what this abundant wallflower. Sian's nighttime wardrobe, we believe, a handful of ring fingers, a callow stomach, a heart of tea and cakes, a goose liver, three-fourths of a buttock, a black adder truncated—as young Master Johnny on his first louche moment at the birth of prethinking, seeing himself Lord this and Lord that, playing with thistlecracks in the hedgerow.

"He sat down and went through the paragraph over and over. It could have said"

. . . Whaam! Smash! Ahooogah! Ding! Grunt! Sploosh! Doinggg! Thud! Bamm! Shazaam! Glub! Zing! Blbbbtt! Thump! Gonggg! Boom! Kapow!

"Joyce's paragraph made no sense, and yet it made a kind of sense. Trevor realized that the odd thing about English is that no matter how much you screw sequences word up, you understood, still, like Yoda, will be. Other languages don't work that way. French? Dieu! Misplace a single le or la and an idea vaporizes into a sonic puff. English is flexible: you can jam it into a Cuisinart for an hour, remove it, and meaning will still emerge.” (Douglas Coupland, Generation A. Random House Canada, 2009)

Hamlet-Summary-Internal Students-Rajarata University of Sri Lanka-02nd Year Students

Prince Hamlet is depressed. Having been summoned home to Denmark from school in Germany to attend his father's funeral, he is shocked to find his mother Gertrude already remarried. The Queen has wed Hamlet's Uncle Claudius, the dead king's brother. To Hamlet, the marriage is "foul incest." Worse still, Claudius has had himself crowned King despite the fact that Hamlet was his father's heir to the throne. Hamlet suspects foul play.

When his father's ghost visits the castle, Hamlet's suspicions are confirmed. The Ghost complains that he is unable to rest in peace because he was murdered. Claudius, says the Ghost, poured poison in King Hamlet's ear while the old king napped. Unable to confess and find salvation, King Hamlet is now consigned, for a time, to spend his days in Purgatory and walk the earth by night. He entreats Hamlet to avenge his death, but to spare Gertrude, to let Heaven decide her fate.

Hamlet vows to affect madness — puts "an antic disposition on" — to wear a mask that will enable him to observe the interactions in the castle, but finds himself more confused than ever. In his persistent confusion, he questions the Ghost's trustworthiness. What if the Ghost is not a true spirit, but rather an agent of the devil sent to tempt him? What if killing Claudius results in Hamlet's having to relive his memories for all eternity? Hamlet agonizes over what he perceives as his cowardice because he cannot stop himself from thinking. Words immobilize Hamlet, but the world he lives in prizes action.

In order to test the Ghost's sincerity, Hamlet enlists the help of a troupe of players who perform a play called The Murder of Gonzagoto which Hamlet has added scenes that recreate the murder the Ghost described. Hamlet calls the revised play The Mousetrap, and the ploy proves a success. As Hamlet had hoped, Claudius' reaction to the staged murder reveals the King to be conscience-stricken. Claudius leaves the room because he cannot breathe, and his vision is dimmed for want of light. Convinced now that Claudius is a villain, Hamlet resolves to kill him. But, as Hamlet observes, "conscience doth make cowards of us all."

In his continued reluctance to dispatch Claudius, Hamlet actually causes six ancillary deaths. The first death belongs to Polonius, whom Hamlet stabs through a wallhanging as the old man spies on Hamlet and Gertrude in the Queen's private chamber. Claudius punishes Hamlet for Polonius' death by exiling him to England. He has brought Hamlet's school chums Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to Denmark from Germany to spy on his nephew, and now he instructs them to deliver Hamlet into the English king's hands for execution. Hamlet discovers the plot and arranges for the hanging of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern instead. Ophelia, distraught over her father's death and Hamlet's behavior, drowns while singing sad love songs bemoaning the fate of a spurned lover. Her brother, Laertes, falls next.

Laertes, returned to Denmark from France to avenge his father's death, witnesses Ophelia's descent into madness. After her funeral, where he and Hamlet come to blows over which of them loved Ophelia best, Laertes vows to punish Hamlet for her death as well.

Unencumbered by words, Laertes plots with Claudius to kill Hamlet. In the midst of the sword fight, however, Laertes drops his poisoned sword. Hamlet retrieves the sword and cuts Laertes. The lethal poison kills Laertes. Before he dies, Laertes tells Hamlet that because Hamlet has already been cut with the same sword, he too will shortly die. Horatio diverts Hamlet's attention from Laertes for a moment by pointing out that "The Queen falls."

Gertrude, believing that Hamlet's hitting Laertes means her son is winning the fencing match, has drunk a toast to her son from the poisoned cup Claudius had intended for Hamlet. The Queen dies.

As Laertes lies dying, he confesses to Hamlet his part in the plot and explains that Gertrude's death lies on Claudius' head. Finally enraged, Hamlet stabs Claudius with the poisoned sword and then pours the last of the poisoned wine down the King's throat. Before he dies, Hamlet declares that the throne should now pass to Prince Fortinbras of Norway, and he implores his true friend Horatio to accurately explain the events that have led to the bloodbath at Elsinore. With his last breath, he releases himself from the prison of his words: "The rest is silence."

The play ends as Prince Fortinbras, in his first act as King of Denmark, orders a funeral with full military honors for slain Prince Hamlet.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? External Degree Program-Bhiksu University of Sri Lanka-2017

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?-18 William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616)

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But, thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

SONNET 18	PARAPHRASE
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?	Shall I compare you to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:	You are more lovely and more constant:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,	Rough winds shake the beloved buds of May
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:	And summer is far too short:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,	At times the sun is too hot,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;	Or often goes behind the clouds;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,	And everything beautiful sometime will lose its beauty,
By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;	By misfortune or by nature's planned out course.
But thy eternal summer shall not fade	But your youth shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;	Nor will you lose the beauty that you possess;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,	Nor will death claim you for his own,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;	Because in my eternal verse you will live forever.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,	So long as there are people on this earth,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.	So long will this poem live on, making you immortal.

Notes

temperate (1): i.e., evenly-tempered; not overcome by passion. 
the eye of heaven (5): i.e., the sun. 
every fair from fair sometime declines (7): i.e., the beauty (fair) of everything beautiful (fair) will fade (declines). Compare to Sonnet 116: "rosy lips and cheeks/Within his bending sickle's compass come." 
nature's changing course (8): i.e., the natural changes age brings. 
that fair thou ow'st (10): i.e., that beauty you possess. 
in eternal lines...growest (12): The poet is using a grafting metaphor in this line. Grafting is a technique used to join parts from two plants with cords so that they grow as one. Thus the beloved becomes immortal, grafted to time with the poet's cords (his "eternal lines"). For commentary on whether this sonnet is really "one long exercise in self-glorification", please see below. 

Sonnet 18 is the best known and most well-loved of all 154 sonnets. It is also one of the most straightforward in language and intent. The stability of love and its power to immortalize the subject of the poet's verse is the theme.
The poet starts the praise of his dear friend without ostentation, but he slowly builds the image of his friend into that of a perfect being. His friend is first compared to summer in the octave, but, at the start of the third quatrain (9), he is summer, and thus, he has metamorphosed into the standard by which true beauty can and should be judged. The poet's only answer to such profound joy and beauty is to ensure that his friend be forever in human memory, saved from the oblivion that accompanies death. He achieves this through his verse, believing that, as history writes itself, his friend will become one with time. The final couplet reaffirms the poet's hope that as long as there is breath in mankind, his poetry too will live on, and ensure the immortality of his muse. 
Interestingly, not everyone is willing to accept the role of Sonnet 18 as the ultimate English love poem.

What kind of love does 'this' in fact give to 'thee'? We know nothing of the beloved's form or height or hair or eyes or bearing, nothing of her character or mind, nothing of her at all, really. This 'love poem' is actually written not in praise of the beloved, as it seems, but in praise of itself. Death shall not brag, says the poet; the poet shall brag. This famous sonnet is on this view one long exercise in self-glorification, not a love poem at all; surely not suitable for earnest recitation at a wedding or anniversary party, or in a Valentine. (142)

The speaker opens the poem with a question addressed to the beloved: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” The next eleven lines are devoted to such a comparison. In line 2, the speaker stipulates what mainly differentiates the young man from the summer’s day: he is “more lovely and more temperate.” Summer’s days tend toward extremes: they are shaken by “rough winds”; in them, the sun (“the eye of heaven”) often shines “too hot,” or too dim. And summer is fleeting: its date is too short, and it leads to the withering of autumn, as “every fair from fair sometime declines.” The final quatrain of the sonnet tells how the beloved differs from the summer in that respect: his beauty will last forever (“Thy eternal summer shall not fade...”) and never die. In the couplet, the speaker explains how the beloved’s beauty will accomplish this feat, and not perish because it is preserved in the poem, which will last forever; it will live “as long as men can breathe or eyes can see.”

This sonnet is certainly the most famous in the sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets; it may be the most famous lyric poem in English. Among Shakespeare’s works, only lines such as “To be or not to be” and “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” are better-known. This is not to say that it is at all the best or most interesting or most beautiful of the sonnets; but the simplicity and loveliness of its praise of the beloved has guaranteed its place.

On the surface, the poem is simply a statement of praise about the beauty of the beloved; summer tends to unpleasant extremes of windiness and heat, but the beloved is always mild and temperate. Summer is incidentally personified as the “eye of heaven” with its “gold complexion”; the imagery throughout is simple and unaffected, with the “darling buds of May” giving way to the “eternal summer”, which the speaker promises the beloved. The language, too, is comparatively unadorned for the sonnets; it is not heavy with alliteration or assonance, and nearly every line is its own self-contained clause—almost every line ends with some punctuation, which effects a pause.

Sonnet 18 is the first poem in the sonnets not to explicitly encourage the young man to have children. The “procreation” sequence of the first 17 sonnets ended with the speaker’s realization that the young man might not need children to preserve his beauty; he could also live, the speaker writes at the end of Sonnet 17, “in my rhyme.” Sonnet 18, then, is the first “rhyme”—the speaker’s first attempt to preserve the young man’s beauty for all time. An important theme of the sonnet (as it is an important theme throughout much of the sequence) is the power of the speaker’s poem to defy time and last forever, carrying the beauty of the beloved down to future generations. The beloved’s “eternal summer” shall not fade precisely because it is embodied in the sonnet: “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,” the speaker writes in the couplet, “So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”

The speaker begins by asking whether he should or will compare "thee" to a summer day. He says that his beloved is more lovely and more even-tempered. He then runs off a list of reasons why summer isn’t all that great: winds shake the buds that emerged in spring, summer ends too quickly, and the sun can get too hot or be obscured by clouds.

He goes on, saying that everything beautiful eventually fades by chance or by nature’s inevitable changes. Coming back to the beloved, though, he argues that his or her summer (or happy, beautiful years) won’t go away, nor will his or her beauty fade away. Moreover, death will never be able to take the beloved, since the beloved exists in eternal lines (meaning poetry). The speaker concludes that as long as humans exist and can see (so as to read), the poem he’s writing will live on, allowing the beloved to keep living as well

Sonnet 18 is arguably the most famous of the sonnets, its opening line competitive with "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" in the long list of Shakespeare's quotable quotations. The gender of the addressee is not explicit, but this is the first sonnet after the so-called "procreation sonnets" (sonnets 1-17), i.e., it apparently marks the place where the poet has abandoned his earlier push to persuade the fair lord to have a child. The first two quatrains focus on the fair lord's beauty: the poet attempts to compare it to a summer's day, but shows that there can be no such comparison, since the fair lord's timeless beauty far surpasses that of the fleeting, inconstant season.

Here the theme of the ravages of time again predominates; we see it especially in line 7, where the poet speaks of the inevitable mortality of beauty: "And every fair from fair sometime declines." But the fair lord's is of another sort, for it "shall not fade" - the poet is eternalizing the fair lord's beauty in his verse, in these "eternal lines." Note the financial imagery ("summer's lease") and the use of anaphora (the repetition of opening words) in lines 6-7, 10-11, and 13-14. Also note that May (line 3) was an early summer month in Shakespeare's time, because England did not adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752.

The poet describes summer as a season of extremes and disappointments. He begins in lines 3-4, where "rough winds" are an unwelcome extreme and the shortness of summer is its disappointment. He continues in lines 5-6, where he lingers on the imperfections of the summer sun. Here again we find an extreme and a disappointment: the sun is sometimes far too hot, while at other times its "gold complexion" is dimmed by passing clouds. These imperfections contrast sharply with the poet's description of the fair lord, who is "more temperate" (not extreme) and whose "eternal summer shall not fade" (i.e., will not become a disappointment) thanks to what the poet proposes in line 12.

In line 12 we find the poet's solution - how he intends to eternalize the fair lord's beauty despite his refusal to have a child. The poet plans to capture the fair lord's beauty in his verse ("eternal lines"), which he believes will withstand the ravages of time. Thereby the fair lord's "eternal summer shall not fade," and the poet will have gotten his wish. Here we see the poet's use of "summer" as a metaphor for youth, or perhaps beauty, or perhaps the beauty of youth.

But has the poet really abandoned the idea of encouraging the fair lord to have a child? Some scholars suggest that the "eternal lines" in line 12 have a double meaning: the fair lord's beauty can live on not only in the written lines of the poet's verse but also in the family lines of the fair lord's progeny. Such an interpretation would echo the sentiment of the preceding sonnet's closing couplet: "But were some child of yours alive that time / You should live twice; in it and in my rhyme." The use of "growest" also implies an increasing or changing: we can envision the fair lord's family lines growing over time, yet this image is not as readily applicable to the lines of the poet's verse - unless it refers only to his intention to continue writing about the fair lord's beauty, his verse thereby "growing." On the other hand, line 14 seems to counter this interpretation, the singular "this" (as opposed to "these") having as its most likely antecedent the poet's verse, and nothing more.

Prepared by

D.N. Aloysius

Lecturer in English

Department of Languages

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

The Village in the Jungle-External Degree Program-Bhiksu University of Sri Lanka-2017

The Village in the Jungle 

By Leonard Woolf

The Village in the Jungle is a novel by Leonard Woolf, published in 1913, based on his experiences as a colonial civil servant in British-controlled Ceylon in the early years of the 20th century. It was written from the native rather than the colonial point of view. It is also an influential work of Sri Lankan literature.

Leonard Woolf worked for the British Ceylon Civil Service in Sri Lanka for seven years after graduating from Cambridge University in 1904. He became an Assistant Government Agent in Sri Lanka, dealing with a variety of administrative and judicial issues. The district he was in charge of had a population of 100,000 people. Woolf also kept a comprehensive diary while there, and later said that his experiences in the country led to him adopting liberal political views and becoming an opponent of imperialism. He wrote The Village in the Jungle, his first novel, after he returned from Sri Lanka to England in 1911 while he was courting his future wife Virginia Stephen. He dedicated the novel to her.

The novel describes the lives of a poor family in a small village called Beddagama, (The Village in the Jungle). The people of the village struggle to survive the challenges presented by poverty, disease, superstition, unsympathetic colonial system and the jungle itself. The head of the family is a hunter named Silindu, who has two daughters named Punchi Menika and Hinnihami. After being manipulated by the village authorities and a debt collector, Silindu is put on trial for murder.

 Written two decades before George Orwell's much better known anti-imperialist novel Burmese Days, The Village in the Jungle has been described by Nick Rankin as "the first novel in English literature to be written from the indigenous point of view rather than the colonizer’s. Victoria Glendinning described it as a foundational novel in the Sri Lankan literary canon, but the novel remains little known in the wider world. In 1980, a Sinhalese language film entitled Beddegama was released based on the novel.

This novel, set in Ceylon, follows the lives of a handful of villagers hacking out a fragile existence in a jungle, where indiscriminate growth, indifferent fate and malevolent neighbours constantly threaten to overwhelm them.

This book deserves more recognition than it's gotten. It is seen as a classic in Sri Lanka.

The novel, set mostly in Sri Lankan jungle, follows the inhabitants of the village of Beddegama. It is atmospheric and gripping. Most of the inhabitants live from hand to mouth and are heavily in debt to the headman, who doles out favours according to his whims. 

Woolf describes the social hierarchy at work within this village, with administrative staff like the headman at the top of the food chain and abusing their power, while folks like Silindu are considered social deviants, and left scrabbling for food. 

The bustle of the town is bewildering to these people, when they do venture forth, and most people consider leaving as a last resort, even when starving to death. 
There are a lot of other themes too, like the importance given to the supernatural, in a world where demons are almost prosaic. In the midst of all their troubles, the villagers cling to religion as their safeguard against these demons. It's also set in the colonial times, so there's a bit of social commentary there too.

The powerlessness of the village women is explored as well- most of the story revolves around Silindu's daughters, who seem to be of the Rodiya caste. 
This book isn't one to go for if you're looking for neat resolutions or happy endings. But, it is an accurate portrayal of the impoverished village. 
Leonard Woolf served in the Ceylon Civil Service in the early 1900s, in Kandy and Jaffna, before he was appointed Assistant Government Agent to Hambantota. Later, he married Virginia Woolf and wrote the novel, The Village in The Jungle around 1913. 

Comments:

1.   The book is still highly regarded in Sri Lanka apparently, despite almost all the native characters being depicted as either rascally, corrupt or extremely stupid. The story is not a happy one.

2.   A young Leonard Woolf arrived in Ceylon an innocent imperialist, and he left it several years later with a great love of the country and its peoples. His social conscience had sharpened, and he was all too aware that the imperial project was meaningless and harmful in the lives of the Sinhalese, Tamils and Moors. 

3.   This novel is about a Sinhala family living in a small village in the depths of a jungle. It is a hard life, though they have their ways of making it work as best as conditions allow. I suppose I had false notions of jungles being verdant and fruitful and lush, but in many ways  or for much of the year  it seems almost as barren as a desert. 

4.   The story of Village in the Jungle is full of acrimony. It is disgusting to see that human beings are subjected to such levels of torture and misery by their own neighbors and the administrators. Unfortunately, the story of the novel is not unique only to Baddegama. It is the story of the rural Sri Lanka during colonial times. The story of the rural villages is not that different even today with all the advancement of technology and democracy we are supposed to enjoy.

5.   Set in colonial Ceylon, this novel is vivid and readable. While the author clearly illustrates a particular culture and time, that of a rural family in the dry forest area, where life is particularly hard and short, the psychological and social effects of poverty have universal qualities. While the colonial administration system is clearly one of the villains of the book, the gentle innocence of the main characters clearly would be a disadvantage under any system.

6.   An engrossing tale, inspired by the author's time as assistant governor in the east of Sri Lanka. Set in a small village, it concerns the taciturn loner, Silindu, and his motherless twin daughters. Silindu is an outsider in his village, and prefers to spend his time away hunting in the jungle. But, life is hard and desperately poor.

7.   This novel is about a small village called Beddegama located deep in the jungles British Ceylon. The story tells us about the dangers of the jungle and how it slowly consumed the village. Within the village, people struggled to live. Most of the villagers had little to eat and diseases killed off the young, old, and weak. Every villager was living in poverty and owed debt to the village head who was very wealthy. The village was filled with corruption and the villagers were frequently exploited.

8.   Man vs man, man vs nature and man vs himself.

9.   Intrigues between the people, murder and deceit.

Prepared by

D.N. Aloysius

Lecturer in English

Department of Languages

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities

Rajarata University of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was one of the most famous poets to come out of Chile, and the first poet from a Latin American nation to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. She lived a colorful and active life, visiting foreign cities as a representative of Chile, and was recognized as an expert in education throughout the Americas. Her father was a schoolteacher who married a widow who already had a fifteen-year-old daughter. On April 7, 1889, Mistral was born as Lucia Goday Alcayaga in Vicuna, in the Elqui valley in northern Chile. When she was three, her father abandoned the family, and she was raised and educated by her mother and her half-sister Emilina, who were both teachers. She spent her childhood in the natural, rural setting of the Elqui valley.

The telephone rang and father went there. He lifted the receiver and listened to the phone. He looked at me angrily and I went to the room. I was afraid. “Who gave the call?” I thought whether my girl friend called. Once again, the phone rang and I was afraid. My father may get in his mind the caller is my girlfriend. I thought what my father would do. I felt whether he would blame me. Suddenly, my father came to me. I was looking down. He looked at me angrily and said, “Do the school home work properly”. So saying, he went out. I understood what I thought was wrong. My principal was talking with my father about my Term Test Marks. I decided that hereafter I should do my school work completely and promised my father to do so.