FOcus on books
Sinhala book on Aristophanes
by Prof. Sunanda Mahendra
Kamani Jayasekara, the award winning creative authoress of short
stories, is the head of Western Classics Department, University of
Kelaniya. To her credit she has written a number of books both in
Sinhala and English. When it comes to her subject of classical culture
she writes in Sinhala and when it comes to creative writing she writes
in English.
She excels well in both fields and known to the readers in Sinhala as
a scholar who contributes the knowledge of the aspects of Greek culture
in the best possible manner.
Her latest contribution is a Sinhala text on the life and works of
the Greek comic poet and dramatist Aristophanes [450-385BC] titled as
Greeka Natyakaru Aristophanes [Godage 2004].
Running to seven short chapters with examples drawn from the life and
plays of the dramatist an attempt is made to introduce the nature and
the vision of Aristophanes as a creator of comedy of which most are
translated into English. As a result the Sinhala scholar will have to
depend on the English texts and interpretations.
The bibliography attached to the present text of Kamani Jayasekara
visualizes the extent to which she had depended on the English texts as
original material and starting point for this kind of research mostly
dependant on the textual knowledge over the years.
At the outset the researcher writer Jayasekara outlines the
background in which Aristophanes based his works and the context in
which he visualized his creative activity with special reference to the
socio-political nuances and the various schools of thought like the
school of sophists.
Birth
Aristophanes was born during the great era of Athenian history that
followed the defeat of the Persians at Marathon and Salamis and wrote
most of his plays during the Peloponesian war [431-404BC] that brought
this period to an end, and lived on into the post-war years when Athens
was stripped of power and freedom by the victorious Spartans.
Aristophanes was one creator who opposed the Peloponesian war and the
decadent Athenian democracy whose policies he considered largely
responsible for it. It is mentioned that he was also opposed to the new
ideas that sprung up in Athens in the field of religion, education and
literature and to those who taught them.
This may have been the climate of his creative process which produced
such wonderful plays as The Clouds [423 BC], The Frogs [405 BC] and The
Birds [414 BC] to name a few out of a many numbering to about eleven
plays.
One of the remarkable features about the plays of Aristophanes is
that he visualizes the characters of such eminent personalities like
Socrates [in The Clouds] and Euripides [in The Frogs]. He creatively
abuses them for misusing their scholarship for the sake of a moral
degradation which he thought was harmful.
This point is taken seriously by Jayasekara when she discusses the
various points of view as found in the connection between Aristophanes
and Socrates [In my play Socrates, I made use of the episode of Socrates
and Aristophanes meeting each other].
Truth
In this context it would be apt to state that the play The clouds was
once adapted and produced by the late professor of mathematics of the
University of Colombo, Douglas Amarasekara titled as "Etta kumakda"[what
is truth?]. This I think was the only occasion when a Greek comedy was
brought on to the Sri Lankan stage, which to my mind not only introduced
the Greek comedy but also paved the way to peep more into Greek theatre.
I am not too sure whether the text of this Greek comedy is published
or not. But it is high time that the slumbering Sinhala Drama Panel
members make note of this kind of historical significance and attempt to
restore a new heritage in theatrical culture.
As is shown by Jayasekara the creative process and the spirit in
which the experience is presented on the part of Aristophanes is
fertile. One good example as she shows is Lysistrata [411BC], in which
the women of Greece unite in the determination to abstain from sexual
relations with their husbands until they bring the war to an end. What
if a play of this sort is staged in our country? I once asked the
researcher Jayasekara.
The response was a sort of laughter tinged with a degree of sarcasm
"will they allow that kind of thing here?" In this text she has
translated some of the passages as found in the original work into
Sinhala[ pp137-146].
But reading through the lines as laid in the translation, I never
found anything adverse or vulgar for that matter but, strangely enough,
found it extremely an interesting creative study in the limits and
strengths of love, lust and over pervading areas of obscenity
unvisualized in popular cultural aspects in post modernism.
This point could have been further elaborated on the part of the
authoress. If I remember correct, the French critic and philosopher
Derrida once laid emphasis on this aspect in one of his books.
All in all a Sinhala reader may feel that this is not only a fact
file on the dramatist Aristophanes but also an insight into the various
theatrical developments that sprung up in Greece enabling the scholar to
utilize material for a cross cultural study of theatre.
Contact: [email protected]
Can money be counted?
"Learn English Through Role Play", Author: Manel Weerasekera,
Published by Lassana Publishers, Pages 102, Price Rs. 200
To be frank I wasn't all that thrilled when I was given this book for
reviewing. Textbooks still remind me of school and exams. I would do
anything I can to avoid them. But, hold it.
If you think you've got the right premonition as to what will follow,
if you think having said the above I am going to write, "when I came
across Manel Weerasekera's "Learn English through Role Play", all that
changed and I found a textbook I enjoy reading" you are wrong. Manel's
book has not changed the way I feel for textbooks.
But had I been an English teacher straddled with the task of teaching
the government texts called the World Through English to secondary
school children, I wouldn't mind having English through Role Play, in my
handbag. The 19 plays in the book would help me ingrain into the minds
of my class some of the basic rules of English grammar. Here's how Manel
introduces the concept of countable and uncountable nouns.
Nina: "Uncle I have a problem. My English teacher says money
cannot be counted. Isn't that silly?"
Uncle: "So, what did you say?"
Nina: "I said why not? My mother counts money very often..."
Uncle: "Do you know how to count?"
Nina: "Uncle don't insult me. I'm in Grade 6. Of course I know
how to count."
Uncle: "Then, count this sugar..."
Through this dialogue between Nina and her Uncle who is an English
teacher Manel explains how the uncountable nouns can be counted i.e., by
measuring them or weighing them. A few pages forward and you find her
introducing the present continuous tense in the Role Play titled The
Scarecrow.
Mother: "Why are you crying my little one?"
Daughter: "There is a man standing in our paddy field. I am
scared of him."
Mother: "A man is standing in our paddy field? Can't be. Come,
let's go and check."
Daughter: "I can't. I can't I'm frightened."
Using her experience in teaching English and writing plays for radio,
Manel has written the plays, keeping in mind the weaker students who are
not well versed in the art of speaking effectively in English or reading
aloud with expression and understanding.
She believes the role plays in the book can minimize these obstacles
and that "the students will get a sense of achievement and self
satisfaction because the inherent qualities in them will be made to
surface when acting".
The activities in the book will undoubtedly make the task of the
English teacher lighter, as well as helping young readers to register in
their minds the vocabulary and sentence structures learnt in class.
An important book therefore, when it comes to learning English in
schools, where the mastery of correct grammar is of paramount
importance. And, perhaps in day-to-day life too, because after reading
some of the role plays in Manel's book, I now know Captain Kirk should
not have said "To boldly go..." at the beginning of each episode of Star
Trek, because, as none of us can say what Humpty Dumpty so scornfully
says in Lewis Carroll's "Through the looking Glass", "When I use a word,
it means what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less" he ought to
have said "To go boldly...".
Aditha Dissanayake
..................................
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