A Critique of Time in Shakespeare, Wordsworth,Iqbal and T.S. Eliot

The five essays comprising this slender volume, written at widely-separated intervals, fall within a pattern: what links them together is the unity of theme that subsists at their centre. This may summarily and forthwith be designated as the concern with the mutations and upheavals that constitute the vortex of existence and tend to be measured with the side-real Time. Flux and change cleave to the very core of everyday life, and all mans activities may be evaluated in terms of our reactions and responses to these vicissitudes. The multiple aspects of change and variation to which we are subjected are visible at all levels and strata of living and it looks as if the events and occurrences of life are the beads of a rosary. They seem to be entwined and interlocked in such a way that it is difficult, almost impossible, to specify and distinguish them one from the other. The enigma and riddle of life may well be equated with the attempt, though not always, to unravel the inextricable knot and define the indefinable. To all intents and purposes man seems to be entangled in the fold-within- fold of life, and to be fully exposed to its pressures, vagaries and caprices and yet he feels the irresistible urge to break the thraldom of Time.