ARMS AND THE MAN

Q. Write a note on Shaw's treatment of love and marriage

Ans. Raina and Sergius are as delusional about love as they are about war, seeming to have derived their understanding of romance primarily from Byronic poetry. They celebrate each other with formal and pretentious declarations of “higher love”, yet clearly feel uncomfortable in one another’s presence (25). The couple, with their good looks, noble blood and idealistic outlook, seem to be a perfect match, but in George Bernard Shaw’s world love does not function as it does in fairy tales. Instead Raina falls for the practical and competent Swiss mercenary that crawls through her bedroom window and Sergius for the pragmatic and clever household maid. Love does not adhere to conventions regarding class or nationality. Moreover, love is not some abstract expression of poetic purity. Love in Arms and the Man is ultimately directed at those who understand the characters best and who ground them in reality.

Q.What does chocolate symbolize in arms and the man as it has with an officer?

Ans. Chocolate serves as an enduring and complex symbol throughout Arms and the Man. When first introduced it serves as a symbol of Captain Bluntschli’s pragmatism and disdain for romanticism. Instead of carrying his cartridges, which are later revealed to be useless, the Swiss mercenary carries chocolate. During this time period, soldiers often carried chocolate with low milk content as rations; such chocolate rarely spoiled, even in humid conditions, and could provide a significant amount of calories, even in small portions (Satran 26). Some readers may, like Raina, incorrectly assume Bluntschli was carrying a luxurious treat, but it was not an indulgence, but a practical ration for the field.

Q.How does Bluntschli act as mouthpiece for Shaw,the iconoclast?

Ans. Bluntschli is the main character in the play and is shaw's speaker. Bluntschli gives deep irony to the thoughts of Raina and Sergius. In the first act he is seen as breaking the idealism for war and romance in Raina again and again. His practical approach is a weapon used by shaw to show that the reality of the truth can be much more harsh than idealism. In the first act he is ready to cry frightened ready to cry and almost in the mouth of death.He even threatens Raina and says that it's a solider's duty to live as long as he can. Contrary to Raina,s thoughts he says that all the solider's are afraid to die. He also says that he is a mercenary who fights for money rather than pratrorism shows that most of the solider's are only mercenarys. Shaw uses blunts hi to break the idealism and romance in war and show how horrible war is rather than showing a traditional hero

Captain Bluntschli brings all the characters of the play together. He is a shrewd judge of character and easily understands Raina, Sergius, Major Petkoff and Catherine. Shaw uses Bluntschlis character to bring out his views about war and love. Bluntchli explains that he is a professional soldier but he is "glad to get out of it." He informs Raina how Sergius's cavalry charge was a act of suicide. It was like "Don Quixote attacking at the windmills." He won the war only because the Serbians were provided with the wrong ammunitions.

He understands that Raina and Sergius are not in love rather, there is not even physical attraction between them. "He kisses her forehead" instead of her lip and in her absence flirts with Louka, the maidservant of the Petkoff family. Sergius shows more attraction towards Louka than towards Raina. Bluntschli makes them realise that their "higher love" does not exist.

Shaw through Bluntschli has shown how Major Petkoff was made a major because of his social status and not his military abilities. Bulgarians "make canons out of cherry trees and send their wives to keep discipline."

Bluntschli is extremely witty. He knows about Catherines pretentious nature and being smart does not put up a bet againt Major Petkoff. He knows Catherine must have put the coat in the blue closet and Nicola actually revives it from there when asked to bring it to the Major.

G.B. Shaw has also bought out social snobbery. When Blunstchli meets Raina after the war, for the first time, while covered in "mud and blood and snow," Raina flaunts the library in her house, "which in reality is not much of a library," and the stairs inside her house. Bluntschli being a "free citizen" and having an immense amount of wealth does not talk about it until the end when he had to prove to the Petkoffs that he will be able to take care of Raina if they get married. He is extremely happy on hearing that Sergius and Louka plan to get married and congratulates Louka unlike Catherine who is shocked on hearing this news and is unable to believe it.

The themes of war, love and social snobbery have been ridiculed and satirized by Shaw.

DOVER BEACH

Q.What do the cliffs symbolize in Dover Beach?

The cliffs are made of chalky limestone, and since they can be easily broken down. This directly refers to the idea that the world is so vulnerable and easily broken down throughout the entirety of the poem

Q.What are undiscovered mysteries?

Undiscovered mysteries are those things that happen after death.... the unknown. For the speaker, what happens after death is an unknown entity.

Q.what message does Mathew Arnold's ''Dover Beach'' convey?

Arnold wrote this poem in the style of the Romantics. It has a strong spiritual/nature element to it that personifies the human existence. He uses the sea, night, moon ...to give us a surreal experience that is both mysterious and sensual all this is packaged in his overall message of the mystery and supernatural nature of life.

Q."Ah, love, let us be true".Explain.

The term "love" merely seems to be addressed to the woman, presumably his wife, with whom he is sharing a room with a view of the English Channel and Dover Beach at night. The entire poem is addressed to this woman he loves. She must be someone who knows him well, and someone to whom he feels free to share his innermost thoughts. It might be speculated that they are on their honeymoon. Since he asked her at the start of the poem to come to the window, we can assume that she is standing beside her and gazing out the window with him when he calls her "love" and speaks the most moving lines, suggesting that the whole world is descending into chaos and they have only each other to cling to in the void.

The technique in Matthew Arnold's poem might be compared with that of William Wordsworth's "Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey: On Revisiting the Banks of the Rye During a Tour, July 13, 1798," which are putatively addressed to Wordsworth's sister Dorothy, as revealed in the following:

"For thou art with me, here, upon the banks Of this fair river; thou, my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend, and in thy voice I catch The language of my former heart, and read My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while May I behold in thee what I was once, My dear, dear Sister!

Q.What insight is offered by Matthew Arnold about how an individual's interactions with nature may help define his or her character in "Dover Beach"?

Arnold lived in the Victorian Age, a time when industrialization and science were undermining traditional religious faith. Published in 1851, "Dover Beach" expresses his concerns about the belief in evolution and the loss of faith in traditional religion. Certainly, his interactions with Nature at the coast of Dover reflect his feelings of uncertainty about the changing world in which he lives.

Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote,

...the lover of nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other.

For the speaker of "Dover Beach" there is such an adjustment, and such a communion of feeling, as expressed in the first stanza:

The sea is calm tonight,... Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay, Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

However, this harmony with Nature is interrupted in the fourth stanza of the poem:

But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating,...

In other words, faith that once encircled the world (a "Sea of Faith") is threatened by the new theories on evolution. Now, the poet, who bemoans this loss of faith, only hears the melancholy sounds of the waves as they leave the world with "naked shingles"; pebbles that no longer represent the beauty of creation.

And we are here as on a darkling plain... Where ignorant armies clash by night.

For Arnold, who is a poet of his time, theories on evolution have sent shock waves to established and traditional religious beliefs, and these shock waves have disrupted the harmony with Nature in which he has lived. For, now, Arnold feels the human misery that "Sophocles long

ago/Heard," as well as the loss of faith. This disruption of nature certainly defines Arnold's despondent nature.

Q.How did Matthew Arnold in his poem 'Dover Beach' portray the real world which we live in?

The use of the first person plural here is somewhat puzzling. Matthew Arnold does not portray the world in which "we" live, as both of us, your instructor, and all possible readers of this response were born long after the poem was written. None of us live in the world of the mid-nineteenth century.

The setting of "Dover Beach" is realistic, in the sense that rather than being set in an imaginary world, such as the fantastic quasi-medieval setting of Keats' "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" or the hallucinatory environment of Rossetti's "Goblin Market", "Dover Beach" portrays a situation that could have happened to an average middle class person of the period and geographical location.

In the poem, a man is looking out over the English Channel, seeing the lights of the French coast glimmering in the distance. He describes in some detail the appearance of the cliffs and the sea, descriptions that are quite accurate in such details as the color of the cliffs and the sound of the waves. From Dover, on a clear night, it is possible to see lights on the French coast as the strait is only slightly over two miles wide at this point.

The basic dramatic situation of a man talking to a woman he loves before a voyage is also one within the realm of ordinary experience. In the nineteenth century, British journeys to the Continent would normally start at Dover, as opposed to the twenty-first century in which we are just as likely to start journeys from airports.

Finally, the metaphor of a place where "ignorant armies clash by night" reflects not only the confusion of actual warfare but also a recollection of the previous wars between France and England.

RIDERS TO THE SEA

Q.Who is maurya?

Maurya in Riders to the Sea is a widow and mother of eight children. Her husband and five of her sons died at sea. She is a woman filled with grief and sorrow.

Q."No Man At All Can Be Living For Ever, And We Must Be Satisfied".Explain.

John Millington Synge, product of the Irish Literary Renaissance, took Riders to the Sea from an actual account related to him when he visited the Aran Islands. The setting is Inishmaan, the middle and by far the most interesting of the Aran Group. A man's body is washed up on Donegal, and by the nature of his dress he is thought to be a native of Inishmaan. The play is concerned with the burial of this man, who turns out to be Maurya's son. The beautiful tragic irony and noble pity of the play place it at the crest of Celtic Drama. The great question of the play is how Maurya will accept the death of her son. In the end she is resigned and takes the death with cosmic understanding.

Q.Discuss the significance of the title, Riders to the Sea by John Millington Synge.

The title, actually taken from the Bible, is an extended metaphor meaning “we are all moving toward mortal death"—literally true of the people of the Aran Islands, where this play takes place, who depend on the sea not only for a livelihood, but also as the only connection to the “world” (the mainland). As each of Maurya’s sons reaches maturity, the economics of the culture draws them to the dangerous sea life. The knotted sweater bundle (itself a deep symbol) is evidence of the recent loss of one son, and seeing the second son riding a horse along a steep cliff (or his ghost) is another physical manifestation of the sea’s toll on those it “calls” to ride to it. The sea, besides being the drowning cause of many sailors and fishermen, is also the universal receptacle for our bodies after our souls have left. An old Irish saying, “The ocean refuses no river”, bears out this metaphor’s meaning as well.

Q.Is Maurya from Riders to the Sea considered to be a tragic hero? Why or why not?

It would be quite a stretch to call Mauyra a tragic hero, using Aristotle’s criteria, based on the plays of Sophocles and Euripides. First, the tragic hero must "fall from a high place.” Even on her small Aran Island, she is not exalted -- she is a “typical” Irish mother of a family of simple fishermen and daughters. Secondly, she does not “fall" in any substantive way, despite the loss of her sons and the vision of her son’s ghost on a horse. Next, she has no tragic flaw in her personality that would cause such a fall. Finally, there is no catharsis or cleansing of the cast or the audience. It could be argued that the “one-place; one-day” requirements of classic tragedy were met, but what people today mean by “tragedy” is that the story of the play does not have a “happy” ending, that the play is “not a comedy.” After the Renaissance and especially during the

Victorian era, drama genres began to be given such names as “melodrama,” “domestic comedy,” and the like.

Q.What role does superstition play in Riders to the Sea?

The people of the Aran Islands live by the sea, and the power of the sea in their lives has become a supernatural power that God uses to both reward (in the form of bountiful fish harvests) and punish the community (in the form of danger and death fighting the sea’s forces.) We in the sophisticated culture of the European and American civilization dismiss the beliefs of the Island people as “superstition” – witness the belief that a drowned man's ghostly visage can ride across the horizon on a pale horse – while most of the allusions are actually from the Bible. To call the beliefs of Mauyra and her daughters “superstitions” would be akin to calling the Christian rituals and beliefs “superstitious” also. Primitive people (that is, societies where geography or other circumstances have separated their lives from the larger communities) almost always concentrate their spiritual symbolism on natural phenomena that affect their daily lives -- the sun, volcanoes, winds, etc. Riders to the Sea, in Synge’s hands, becomes a microcosm of all religious explanations for life’s circumstances.

Q.How does the setting of the play Riders to the Sea make it both local and universal at the same time?

The setting of this short drama is the Aran islands of Ireland. That sounds like a great location. Hawaii is awesome, so why shouldn't all islands be like that? That's not the case with the Aran islands though. They are some of the most barren and forlorn islands of the entire country. Life there is hard. The people that live there are dependent on the ocean in order to earn their living and feed their families. This means that the sea is a great provider of life, while at the same time being dangerous enough to kill men just trying to scratch out a living. In that regard, the setting is incredibly local and specific.

But the setting is also universal in the sense that there are locations all over the world where men and women are struggling in a man vs. nature battle. I could even use something as "mundane" as farming. It doesn't seem dangerous or life threatening, but those farmers are at the mercy of the weather. If they make their crop quota, they earn enough money to provide for their family and keep their equipment up to date. But that same weather has the ability to destroy entire crops and bankrupt the farmer. The drama's theme of constant hard work is universal across just about any given population.

Q.Discuss the role of Nora in Riders to the Sea by J. M. Synge

Nora is more sympathetic to her mother while Cathleen directly challenges her mother to be more positive, to stop her relentless, gloomy negativity. However, at first, both daughters attempt to keep the evidence (clothes) of Michael's death from their mother, Maurya, so that she might not lament. Eventually, Cathleen hands Maurya the clothes confirming Michael's death. Cathleen is certainly more direct with her mother. Nora, being the younger daughter, is a bit more passive.

Maurya does seem to feel closer to Nora and this is illustrated by the fact that Maurya, at times, addresses Nora directly; she never addresses Cathleen. Nora also plays the role of a kind of commentator by giving background information as the play develops. For example, when men, offstage, are carrying in Bartley, Nora provides the description:

They're carrying a thing among them and there's water dripping out of it and leaving a track by the big stones.

Nora does this a few times; including the words the priest has said about Michael and that he would not stop Bartley from going out.

Q.Discuss the color and number symbolism in Riders to the Sea.

the colour symbolism is very prominent to the theme of the play. first, the red mare and the grey pony. Red obviously symbolizes life or the vibrant flow of life. But bartley is riding the red mare. So the question arises that how does bartley then face a disastrous death. The point here is that Bartley is indeed riding the red mare but is follpwed by the grey pony. Here it is a composite symbol: red cannot be treated in isolation but red followed by grey symbolizes that life would be usurped by death chasing it. Needless to mention, the colour grey symbolizes death.

Then, there is the pig with the black feet. Black obviously symbolizes evil, and the reference to the pig with the black feet presages evil destiny for the maurya household.

it is also interesting to note that though the play is set in the otherwise idyllic setting of the Aran islands, nowher is there any reference to the colour green, symbolising freshness, life and rejuvenation. Throught we are conscious of the unseen presence of the dark sea anf the white foam of the waves splashing on the turbulent surface. This overabundant presence of black and white also reiterate the suggestion of death with which the entire play is replete.

the nuber nine is a constant presence in the play. Michael is lost for the last nine days, Bartley says he'd be back in 2 or 3 or 4 days(2+3+4=9). When the play opens Maurya had already lost six male members of her family, husband, father-in-law and her 4 sturdy sons, and by the time the play ends Michael and Bartley are both gone and she herself says that she won't last after them.(once again nine). Nine is referred to in theology as representing triple trinity, thereby suggesting that the hand of God( ironically) is on the family, that death looms large over all.

Q.Discuss Maurya's character (in Riders to the Sea) as a symbol of universal motherhood.

“Symbol” isn’t exactly the right word—“archetype” is better. Maurya, struggling with the economic hardships of raising a family without a husband, goes through the universal pangs of motherhood as her children grow up into the world and slip out of her protective grasp, only to be claimed by the forces outside her control (here, the sea). The unfeeling universe does not differentiate between its victims, but Maurya can, by the unique sweater pattern of the family and by the “missed stitch” that gives Michael his unique signature. Mixed into Maurya’s (and all mothers’) raising of her children is a belief in the supernatural/religious “justice” of the universe, so that (and this is what gives this play such poignancy) she can quickly resign herself to the

“tragedies” that overtake the male members of the family, grieving but not resisting (Bartley’s ghost ride, and the last line of the play dramatize this). The domestic setting of the sisters, while socially out of date now, is a typical situation in 20th (and earlier) century in peasant families, and is archetypical as well. Synge’s genius put the play’s mise-en-scene beautifully in the Aran Islands fishing community, so that we get a portrait of this specific family, but his themes and his mother character are universal. All mothers send their children out into the world to become “riders to the sea.”

STRANGE MEETING

Q.Why the meeting between the two soldiers is called "Strange" in Wilfred Owen's "Strange Meeting"?

Ans. In the climax of the poem the dead soldier informs the poet of his identity- that he is the so called 'enemy' whom he had killed the previous day.Yesterday they were on the opposite sides for a cause unknown.Today they are both dead,together in hell for the rest of eternity where they will have nothing left to do except regretting forever the waste that was occurred in their life.That is why the poet describes the meeting strange.

Q.What does the dead man mean when he refers to "the wildest beauty in the world"?

Ans.The man means that he went, not forced, to war without knowing how war was really like. This suggests the idea that men were lay, and that they were told that fighting in war was a honourable thing to do. "Wildest" suggests that death was inevitable for those who went to war, as they were not really prepared for its cruelty. Overall, it seems to describe how war is the shortest way in the world, to ensure death.

Q. What had been the ideals, abilities and ambitions of the man killed yesterday? What about the narrator of the poem?

Ans. Thes soldier was tricked to fight in war.He was told war was much different than reality and thus, the soldier wanted to transmit the "pity of war" and reveal "the truth untold" through words. However he is not able to do so now as he is dead, and he is hopeless as he won't be able to express himself and explain how war is really like.

Q. Is the final tone one of forgiveness / peace / reconciliation?

Ans. The end does have a tone of forgiveness and reconciliation as one of the dead soldiers explains to the other one that he is the "enemy" killed and calls "friend" to his 'murderer'. Further more, this soldier decides to leave the past in the past when he suggests to "sleep now..."

Q.Does the poem achieve closure?

Ans. The poem however doesn't achieve closure due to the suspension dots, which suggests that something might happen afterwards.

Q.Write a note on the technic used in the Strange Meeting.

Ans. The poem is renowned for its technical innovation, particularly the pararhyme, so named by Edmund Bluson in regard to Owen's use of assonant endings. A pararhyme is a slant or partial rhyme in which the words have similar consonants before and after unlike vowels – escaped and scooped, groaned and grained, hair and hour. Almost all of the end lines in this poem are pararhyme; the last line is a notable exception. Critics have noted how this rhyme scheme adds to the melancholy, subterranean, and bleak atmosphere of the poem.

The poem's description of a soldier's descent into Hell where he meets an enemy soldier he killed lends itself to a critique of war. The dead man talks about the horror of war and the inability for anyone but those involved to grasp the essential truth of the experience. There is more than meets the eye, however, and many critics believe that the man in hell is the soldier's "Other", or his double. A man's encounter with his double is a common trope in Romantic literature; the device was used by Shelley, Dickens, and Yeats, among others. The critic Dominic Hibbard notes the poem does not "[present] war as a merely internal, psychological conflict – but neither is it concerned with the immediate divisions suggested by 'German' and 'conscript' [initially what the dead man calls himself] or 'British' and 'volunteer'." The dead man is the Other, but he is more than a reflection of the speaker - he is a soldier whose death renders his status as an enemy void. Another critic reads the poem as a dream vision, with the soldier descending into his mind and encountering his poetic self, the poem becoming a mythological and psychological journey. Finally, Elliot B. Gose, Jr. writes that "the Other...represents the narrator's unconscious, his primal self from which he has been alienated by war."

The style of the poem was influenced by several sources. "Strange Meeting" echoes Dante's pitying recognition of the tortured faces in Hell, the underworld of Landor's Gebir, and, of course, Keats and Shelley. Owens was an ardent admirer of both Romantic poets, whose The Fall of Hyperion and The Revolt of Islam, respectively, were no doubt instructive to Owen as he composed his own work. The Fall of Hyperion features the goddess of memory revealing her dying but immortal face and her blank eyes, allowing the poet to grasp her monumental knowledge of wars and heroes past. The emphasis in Owen's work on truth and dreams also resonates of Keats'.

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THE DARKLING THRUSH

Q.How does ‘strings of broken lyres’ add to the mood of the poem? Ans.The poem is essentially sad. With the stems of the tangled bine plants swinging in the air, as if they are trying to rise to the sky, the poet compares it with the broken strings of a lyre.

Q.What does the poet compare the hills to? How is this comparison (metaphor) appropriate? Ans The poet compares the hills to the dead-body of the century covered in a shroud. The comparison is apt because the hills lay covered with snow everywhere and the poem was composed at the end of a century. Besides, resembling a dead-body meant for burial, the landscape lay under a massive layer of clouds that stood like the roof of a tomb and the wind sounded a burial hymn.

Q.What does the poet mean by the ‘ancient pulse of germ and birth?’ Ans By ‘the ancient pulse of germ and birth’ the poet could be referring to the seeds that have dried up during the summer and later during autumn. As the seed germinates and gives birth to a new plant, the poet calls it so. Besides, the poet seems to be able to hear the pulse of these seeds that are waiting for the spring season to germinate.

Q.And every spirit upon earth seemed fervourless as I. Explain. Ans The poet presents an utterly dead earth. He finds no life on or under the earth. The poet finds his own existence, too, lifeless.

Q.How does Hardy create a natural scene in the poem "The Darkling Thrush?"

Ans.The speaker leans on a gate opening into the woods. The season is winter and the atmosphere and climate are a "spectre-grey." There is a grey color, possibly to the sky and the frost itself, and it haunts (specter) the landscape. The speaker adds that the weakest (or bleakest) parts of winter (the dregs) make the day desolate as it turns to dusk. This is clearly a cold, bleak, depressing scene. The stems of the bushes are tangled like the broken strings of lyres. That simile here shows that the plant life (shrubs) is also desolate and dissonant in comparison with the mangled music of the lyre. Given this bleak external world, most people seek the comfort of their fireplaces indoors.

This poem was published in December, 1900. In the second stanza, the speaker notes that the landscape is like the corpse of the previous century. The cloudy sky is the century's tomb and the wind sounds its funereal song. This is an example of the pathetic fallacy wherein the landscape's

bleak features match the speaker's bleak outlook on the death of the previous century and the bleak future.

The thrush, similarly bleak in appearance ("frail" and "gaunt") actually sings with joy amidst this barren and depressing landscape. The thrush seems to sing with hope. The speaker can not quite understand what the hope stems from. The previous century is dead and the speaker only sees a bleak future. The thrush provide at least the possibility of hope.

Q. "Had chosen thus to fling his soul / Upon the growing gloom." Explain.

Ans.The speaker of the poem is outside, describing the desolate winter landscape. He focuses on the barren and cold aspects as they symbolize a general despondency that the speaker feels at the end of the 19th century. He assumes that everyone in the world feels the same as he does: "And every spirit upon earth / Seemed fervourless as I."

The thrush's joyful song stands out in stark contrast to the bleak landscape the speaker has described. Despite the barren scene and what the speaker thinks is a general despair reflected in nature and in humanity at the close of the century, the thrush's song is "full-hearted" and full of "joy illimited." The speaker does not understand how the bird could sing joyfully when the world looks and feels so worthless:

So little cause for carolings

Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

Afar or nigh around,

Since the bird sings joyfully amidst a hopeless seen, the speaker presumes that the bird's song indicates the possibility of hope in general and/or a hope for humanity in the next century. The speaker metaphorically says the thrush flings his soul upon the gloomy world. The bird is literally projecting his voice/song into the air as if it is giving hope to the world. The thrush's voice is its soul projected as song; a joy that potentially exists in the speaker's soul. Since the thrush is a bird, some might infer a connection to the image of the mythological phoenix which could rise from its ashes and be reborn. There is a similar theme here; a lone voice of hope rising in the air amidst a barren wasteland.

Q.In "The Darkling Thrush" by Thomas Hardy, does the speaker keep a pessimistic worldview or an optimistic one?Explain with a special attention to the image of the bird in the poem. Ans.Thomas Hardy’s sad but lovely poem, “The Darkling Thrush,” was written in 1899 on the eve of a new century. This is not extraneous information since the poem’s speaker points to the passage of time: the night, the year, and the century.

The poem depicts a man leaning on a gate believing himself in utter solitude. Hardy’s depiction of the setting makes the reader shiver as the speaker describes a chilling, desolate night where everyone has huddled around his fireplace. However, here the speaker stands on the outside looking into a world that seems lost to him.

Apparently the passage of time brings unpleasant memories to the speaker. Using comparative language, the century becomes a corpse with clouds and wind as its companions. Even the wandering spirits have no enthusiasm as the night, year, and century end.

“The land’s sharp features seemed to be

The Century’s corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy…”

Then, something startling happens to the man; he hears a joyous sound. An old, frail, possibly starving bird has chosen this time and place to sing from its heart. The speaker listens and learns from the caroling bird. Much like the myth of Pandora, what comes from the bird is hope. The poet uses the bird’s song as a possibility of light where there appeared only darkness.

“His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

And I was unaware.”

Through his figurative language, initially the poet paints a dismal view of the past and future. With the song of the bird, Hardy portrays new beginnings and hopefulness. There is definitely an air of pessimism toward the end of the century, ending with an optimistic view for , the future.

Q.How does Thomas Hardy create feelings of sadness in "The Darkling Thrush"?

Ans .Imagery throughout the first three stanzas of the poem creates feelings of sadness. In stanza one, words like "spectre," "grey," "desolate," "weakening," and "broken lyre" create sadness by reminding us of miserable weather and brokenness. These images continue even more strongly in stanza two, in words such as "corpse," "crypt," and "death-lament," followed by words that remind the reader of extreme old age: "ancient," "shrunken," and "fervourless." In the next stanza, Hardy uses "bleak," "frail," "gaunt" and "gloom." This pile-up of adjectives creates a cumulative effect of unrelenting sadness and gloom.

This use of such sad words for three consecutive stanzas works to highlight the hope in the last stanza. The poet wonders how the thrush can sing such a beautiful song of "ecstatic sound" in such a bleak world of ageing and death. In fact, the contrast is so great that the poet questions whether the thrush has some knowledge of "blessed Hope" of which the poet is "unaware."

Though the song of the thrush brings a "happy" note of hope to the bleak scene, the thrush's hope contrasts sharply with the hopelessness the poet feels.

THE LAST RIDE TOGETHER

Q.“Since now at length ….needs must be—“. Who is the speaker here? What makes him lament thus?

ANS: The rejected lover in Browning’s dramatic lyric is the speaker here. He has tried every means to retain her love, but now he understands that he has reached such point of discord where no reconciliation is possible. Therefore he tries to rationalise his failure and console himself by accepting the fact that the rejection must have been predestined.

Q.“My whole heart rises up to bless.Your name in pride and thankfulness!”

Who is the speaker here? Why does he use the words ‘pride’ and ‘thankfulness’?

ANS: Though he has been rejected, he now takes pride in the fact that she loved him once. Again since she loved him, he thanks her for doing so.

Q.Explain the expression “Those deep dark eyes …through”. OR, “Fixed me a breathing-while or two….in balance”. What is the incident referred to here? What does the speaker try to mean by “life or death in the balance”?

ANS: When the lady begins considering whether she should accept the proposal for the last ride together, she goes through mixed emotions (reflected in her bent eyebrows). On the one hand, her pride objects to accepting such a proposal: on the other, she feels pity for him since it is she who has rejected him. Q.What does the speaker try to mean by “life or death in the balance”? ANS: After being rejected by his beloved the speaker proposes to her for a last ride. When she begins considering her proposal, it seems to him as if her pronouncement would determine his death or life as he has invested his sole hope in transforming this journey on earth to heaven and thereby seek salvation.

Q.“So, one day more….end tonight!” Why does the speaker think so?

ANS: As the lady accepts his proposal for a last ride, the speaker feels elated since he considers that in love one experiences the divine and gets transfigured almost into a god-like personality. Again the speaker’s hope is sustained by the impermanence of the present or the earthly existence. If the world ends tonight, he thinks, he will carry forward his last ride to eternity. Q.“Fail alone I …/ who succeeds?” Who is the speaker here? Why does he think so?

ANS:As he is now riding with his beloved for the last time, he remembers the past and rationalizes his failure by saying that he is not the sole person in the world, who has failed. In fact, all men try hard for success, but a few succeed. He finds satisfaction in the fact that he has succeeded in realizing the favour of riding with his beloved for the last time.

Q.“Ten lines, a statesman’s life in each!” Where does the line occur? Explain why the speaker exclaims in this way. ANS: In order to justify his failure the speaker in Browning’s dramatic lyric The Last Ride Together speaks of the reward a statesman gets after the end of his active political career. After his death he is rewarded with a short ten-line obituary. His point is that achievement always falls short of ambition and endeavour.

Q.”What if Heaven…so abide?” How does the speaker come to this conclusion?

ANS: Towards the end of his monologue the rejected lover in Browning’s The Last Ride Together projects himself and his beloved—representing the strong and the fair at the prime of their life—as an embodiment of heaven itself. Again he imagines himself and his beloved partaking of the heavenly quality by remaining constant and fixed in their ride together.

Explain the significance of the line, “Whither life’s flower is first discerned…” OR, What is here referred to by the speaker as “life’s flower” and why? Ans. The speaker here in Browning’s The Last Ride Together refers to heaven as the “life’s flower”. According to him, heaven is the culminating point of human life. Human beings can realize the highest reward, the heavenly bliss only in heaven.

Q.How does the lover console himself for his failure in love in Robert Browning's "The Last Ride Together"?

ANS.The speaker in the poem does not define success or failure in love through conventional means. It is the opportunity to revel in one "last ride together" that drives the speaker. Whether one takes this literally as a ride, symbolically as a last opportunity to be with one another, or sexually, it is in this particular instant where success is evident and where "eternity" is made. One might suggest that the speaker has failed in love. Yet, the speaker's metric for success is that he has been able to establish one last shared experience with the object of his love.

The acceptance of the mistress for one last ride is where the speaker finds success. This mere experience moves him to a feeling of transcendence, beyond traditional metrics of success and failure: "I and my mistress/ side by side/ shall be together, breath and ride, / so one day more am I deified/ Who knows but the world may end to- night?" The speaker revels in the moment. It might be a consolation. Yet, the speaker believes that this moment is what transcends the traditional understanding of "success" and "failure." The speaker addresses this later in the poem: "Fail I alone, in words and deeds?/ Why, all men strive and who succeeds?" The speaker is open about the fact that failure and success are external constructs, determined by a measurement that exists outside the subjective. Yet, the speaker is convinced that this love resides in his own sense of identity. The act of riding together one last time is about his love. It is not defined as anything else. Since it is his, there is no need to console himself about the issue

of failure. His love is his to possess. It's not anyone else's right, including hers, to determine success or failure.

This affirmation of the subjective is continued throughout the poem. The ride itself defines success, a condition of transcendence within the mind of the individual: "We rode; it seem'd my spirit flew,/Saw other regions, cities new,/As the world rush'd by on either side./I thought,--All labour, yet no less/ Bear up beneath their unsuccess./Look at the end of work, contrast/ The petty done, the undone vast,/ This present of theirs with the hopeful past!/ I hoped she would love me; here we ride." The speaker equates the experience of the ride as moving beyond "success" or "failure." The speaker would view such terms as temporal. What the speaker is able to experience with a "spirit" that "flew" and seeing "cities new," is something transcendent. This experience that goes beyond "unsuccess" associated with "labor" is where the speaker affirms his own subjectivity. There is no need to suggest consolation in the face of such a transformation. In this light, the speaker would suggest that the "instant made eternity." This is something beyond "success" and "failure." Upon the conclusion of the poem, the speaker has gone past that which is "failure" and even the need to be consoled because of it.

Browning once wrote, "Take away love and our earth is a tomb." This affirmation of the experience in love is one that revels in the instant. The experience of love is one where instant and eternity converge. For the speaker of the poem, being able to experience one last ride together is where success lies. It permanently enshrines love in the speaker's mind, able to live forever, and "Ride, ride together, for ever ride". This is where the speaker turns in the face of external judgments regarding failure.

Q.Comment on Robert Browning's philosophy of love as espressed in the poem "The Last Ride Together"

ANS.Browning's philosophy about love is very interesting in this poem and seems surprisingly modern in that the woman seems to have control, as she has ended the affair. Browning is describing the end of a love affair; 'Since nothing all my love avails' but rather than being sad Browning is suggesting, through his narrator, that we should be grateful for the love that was and revel in its memory. The poem seems to be about 'fixing' this moment in the mind so that it can live forever and bring fond memories.

Browning is suggesting that few people succeed in the endeavor to find real love but nevertheless love is very important; more importantt then wars and even art. For Browning striving seems to be the more important thing and regret pointless. Browning liked the form of the dramatic monologue as it allowed exploration of different ideas and has an immediate feel.

Q.Critical appreciation of the poem 'The Last Ride Together'

ANS. This poem is a dramatic monologue of a rejected lover who expresses his undying love for his beloved. The title gives the idea that this is their last time together and the speaker is attempting to live fully in that moment. The poem appears to suggest that the phrase 'carpe diem' is actually one to live by and that the speaker will be happy with the memory of this last ride.

Browning suggests, as he does in other poems, that the speaker has failed in some way but that this is not important as 'all men strive and who succeeds?' For Browning the present is all important as men spend too much time concentrating on the past or future as things are set out for us by fate and we cannot control them. Even art is not that important as the sculptor's gaze moves away from Venus to 'yonder girl that fords the burn'. The dramatic situation of Robert Browning's The Last Ride Together appears to be one in which the lover, upon being rejected by his mistress, asks for, and is granted, one last horseback ride with her across a mysterious landscape. The ride, however, seems to stretch out to eternity; there is no sense of time demarcation, but a continuous unfurling of landscape.

At the end of the poem. the narrator's focus shifts from the external circumstances of the ride to what various types of artist (visual, musician) have achieved as they grow old. The final artistic type mentioned is the poet, the narrator himself, who suggests that the ride will stretch into eternity, for as long aspeople read the poem. This theme, originally found in Horace, is captured famously in Shakespeare's Sonnet LV:

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments Of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

As in the case of the Shakespeare's sonnet, the poet has the upper hand, because the relationship as he portrays it is the version that shall continue through its posterity.

This poem is an interesting one as it explores ideas of how we should live in the moment and be content with that.

ULYSSES 1. Who was Ulysses?

Ulysses is the Roman name of the legendary Greek hero Odysseus. We get to read of him in bits and parts in Iliad by Homer and he is the main protagonist of the Odyssey. He was the ruler of Ithaca, an island in the Ionian Sea.

2. It little profits that an idle king,/By this still hearth, among these barren crags,/Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole/Unequal laws unto a savage race,/That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.” – Explain. Ulysses, the Greek hero and the king of Ithaca has returned from the battle of Troy to find that he cannot reconcile himself to dull and domestic life, matched as is with his aged wife Penelope and forced to live among primitive people to whom he meets out unequal laws to govern. These men perform life’s functions perfunctorily and do not share his idealism or aspiration.

3. “I cannot rest from travel: I will drink/Life to the lees;” – Who is the speaker? Annotations of the sentence. The speaker is Ulysses (Roman name), known as Odysseus in Homer’s Odyssey. Ulysses inspired by wander-lust which is adventure and experience that leads to knowledge, feels claustrophobic at Ithaca, matched with an aged wife and ruling a primitive race. He proposes to travel further and experience life to the maximum by drinking it to the dregs, by activity and enterprise that would lead to greater knowledge and save him from death.

4. “I have enjoy'd/Greatly, have suffer'd greatly” – What is Ulysses referring to? Ulysses is referring to the adventures he has had during his extensive sojourn when he both enjoyed and suffered alone and in the company of his fellow mariners on shores and seas, even when the haydes meaning ‘Rainers’, a group of seven stars in the head of the constellation of Taurus whose rising and setting are believed to be attended by rains – raised tempests on oceans.

5. “Much have I seen and known; cities of men/And manners, climates, councils, governments,/Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;” – Explain. Ulysses is expounding on his rich and varied experiences of travels in course of which his knowledge has been widen as he has encountered new races, manners, climates, councils and governments. He has been there object of honour and reverence.

6. “And drunk delight of battle with my peers,/Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy” – Explain.

Ulysses is referring to the great Trojan War which they had fought and won. Ulysses had partaken of the delight of the great victory with his peers and the bells were ringing to commemorate their victory over the Trojans.

7. “I am a part of all that I have met;” – Explain. His rich and varied experience is an inseparable part of his own being.

8. “Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'/Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades” – Explain. Ulysses is referring to the elusive world of knowledge that can be seen beyond the arch of experience, but its margin recedes the more one pushes forward to reach it. Ulysses’ immense experience makes him thirst for the world of knowledge and impels him to walk towards it to explore its unexplored regions, despite the inevitability of his failure to attain to his ideals.

9. “Life piled on life/Were all too little, and of one to me/Little remains: but every hour is saved/From that eternal silence” – What does it reveal about the speaker and his intentions? Ulysses feels that ‘Life piles on life’ are all too little to pursue the elusive world of knowledge. He wishes to have a life of activity and dictates inactivity at Ithaca. He regrets that he is old. Yet, he feels that every moment devoted to the pursuit of knowledge is saved from the eternal silence of death.

10.“And this gray spirit yearning in desire/To follow knowledge like a sinking star,/Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.” – Explain. Ulysses is referring that his spirit has become gray with experience and age beyond any inconceivable limit set by human thought.

11.“This is my son, mine own Telemachus” – Explain. These lines contain a concealed irony for Telemachus, though well loved and appreciated by Ulysses, does not share his view of life. Telemachus is a capable ruler who amiably and prudently governs a primitive race trying by soft degrees to civilize the people. He is blameless, does his household course, and performs duties of tenderness and governance and duties to household Gods. Ulysses, however, proposes to live a life of activity in pursuit of knowledge to defeat death albeit temporarily.

12.“—you and I are old;/Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;/Death closes all” – Explain. Ulysses is voicing a clariant call to his mariners to embark upon a relentless pursuit of knowledge despite the fact that they are old. Old age is not for him a time to retrieve into dignified leisure, but surmounting the limitations of old age he proposes, to take up a life of

intense activity since possibilities of newer attainments are enormous that close only with death.

13.“For my purpose holds/To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths/Of all the western stars, until I die.” – Explain. Ulysses proposes to undertake a relentless journey in quest for knowledge would soil beyond the western horizon where the sun vanishes out of sight. The baths of the western stars also refers to the western horizon. Both expressions figuratively refers to man’s insatiable thirst for adventure and relentless quest for knowledge.

14.“It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:/It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,/And see the great Achilles, whom we knew./Tho' much is taken, much abides;” – Explain. Ulysses proposes to live a life of activity in pursuit of knowledge, perhaps even in the shores of death, where they might meet Achilles, the greatest of Greek warriors, residing at the Happy Isles, a fortunate island situated in the Atlantic ocean, at the west of Africa, popularly known as the Greek Paradise. Thus, to pursue knowledge and the life of activity Ulysses is ready to embrace death. Ulysses’ determination and the Victorian spirit of enterprise and adventure is voiced through these lines.

15.“One equal temper of heroic hearts,/Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” – Explain. ‘Heroic hearts’ refer to Ulysses and his followers, who bravely encounter numerous adventures and who are now equally resolved to embark upon a relentless pursuit of knowledge though made weak by time and misfortunes. Their resolution is adamant, that of pursuing knowledge inexorably and assiduously without yielding to time and fate.

Q.What is the basic contrast between the past and present of Ulysses' life in "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson?

Ans.Essentially, the main contrast between Ulysses' past and present is that, in his past, the king was a mighty warrior and adventurer, while, in his present, he is an aged statesman bored with his idle existence and unhappy with the companionship of his family and subjects. One of the major points of Tennyson's "Ulysses" is to describe this contrast, and it quickly becomes very clear that Ulysses glorifies his legendary past while regarding his present situation with distaste. For instance, take a look at how Ulysses describes his past exploits:

Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. (13-17) From this description, it's obvious that Ulysses' past was filled with adventure, epic warfare, and great deeds worthy of legendary heroes. To contrast this thrilling description, take a look at how Ulysses describes his present:

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. (1-5)

It's clear that Ulysses regards his present life as boring, meaningless, and lacking in passion, and this dull assessment is emphasized by the king's sentimental assessment of his heroic past. All in all, the main contrast here is that, in the past, Ulysses was a mighty warrior capable of great deeds, but he is now reduced to an old man who feels confined by his duties and his age. Thus, this poem is really about the aging process and how an elderly individual deals with the inability to live the life he enjoyed in his youth. By presenting this process in the legendary context of Ulysses and The Odyssey, Tennyson dramatically highlights its inherent difficulty.

Q.What is the critical analysis of Tennyson's poem Ulysses?

Ans.Tennyson's "Ulysses" is a wildly popular poem, and one which instigates a variety of interpretations. However, as a starting point, it helps to look at one of the poem's most prominent themes: the rebellion against age, infirmity, and mortality.

The poem opens upon an aging Ulysses lamenting his essentially boring and purposeless life at home in Ithaca. Far from being grateful for having returned home from his harrowing journeys, Ulysses laments his idleness, resenting his "aged wife" (3) and the "savage race" (4) he is doomed to wait upon. However, rebelling against this unremarkable existence, Ulysses declares "I cannot rest from travel" (6) and prepares to set off on yet another voyage.

Though "Ulysses" has many famous lines, the key lines for our purposes occur at the end:

We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. (66-70)

In this stirring conclusion, Ulysses essentially reflects on the loss of his legendary strength, cleverness, and heroism; he is no longer the dashing hero, and is instead and old king sick with nostalgia. However, despite this realization, Ulysses still resolves to strike out into the unknown yet again to once again test his courage. As such, the poem is largely a rebellion against old age and slipping quietly off into obscurity, as it centers on a protagonist determined to defy his mortality and continue "to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

WILD SWANS AT COOLE

Q.How does Yeats portray the beauty of autumn?

Ans: In the poem The Wild Swans at Coole Yeats presents a sombre beauty of the autumnal landscape. The trees are leafless and the paths across the wood are dry. The Cole Lake is full of water to the brim. As there is no wind, its surface is so calm that the clear sky is reflected on it.

Q. “I have looked upon those ...tread”. Why does the poet say that “now my heart is sore”?

Ans: Nineteen years ago when the poet first visited the lake one day at a twilight of autumn, he saw the swans fly through the air in small circles lover by lover. When they flew away above his head joyously, the whole air was filled with the music of their wings. All this made him happy and content. But now he has grown old in body and soul. He feels bitter and sad at the fact that he now cannot enjoy the sight as he had done in his youth.

Q.“Their hearts have not grown old....” Why does the poet say so?

Ans: Standing on the shore of the Coole Lake after a gap of nineteen years the poet feels that unlike himself, the swans have not grown old in body and spirit. Full of youthful vigour they can enjoy paddling through the cold water and winning the hearts of their beloved and mating with them.

Q.Why does the poet call the swans “mysterious creatures”?

Ans: As darkness looms large over the surface of the Coole Lake, it seems to the poet that the swans, as if, belong to a different world different from the humans, a world not marked by mutability. Q. Why does yeast feel that swans’ hearts have to grown old? Ans- In contrast to him aging life, yeast seeks something vital, productive and energetic. He finds that quality in swan’s elevation from the mystery and passion of it. Thus swan’s as opposed o the poet is youthful, everlasting glory and excellence which have not grown old.

Q.What are the contrasts in "The Wild Swans at Coole" by W.B. Yeats?

Ans.Yeats addresses two different contrasts in his poem "The Wild Swans at Coole". The first is between himself in the present, and when he first wlaked along the water where the swans are found. The second is between himself and the swans.

The poet says, "The nineteenth autumn has come upon me since I first made my count", meaning that nineteen years have passed since he first came to see the swans. He realizes that "All's

changed since I, hearing at twilight, the first time on this shore, the bell-beat of their wings above my head". The change is within himself - he was "unwearied" back then, and "trod with a lighter tread", but now his "heart is sore", and he is tired.

Yeats then compares his condition now with that of the swans. While he himself is old and weary, the swans are not. They are still "brilliant creatures", and as "they paddle in the cold companionable streams or climb the air, their hearts have not grown old". The swans still retain a sense of "passion or conquest", and are "mysterious" and "beautiful", capable still of "delight(ing) men's eyes". The poet, in contrast, feels that all these wonderful attributes no longer apply to himself; he is tired, and treads heavily now in body and soul.

Q.What aspects of Modernism are apparent in "The Wild Swans at Coole" by W.B. Yeats?

Ans."The Wild Swans at Coole," by William Butler Yeats, may seem at first glance to be a traditional poem about the beauty of nature. Yeats notes the trees "in their autumn beauty," and the "mysterious, beautiful" swans who "delight men's eyes."

Upon deeper inspection, however, Yeats's poem is pessimistic and thoroughly modern. The poet's heart has grown "sore" and old, a common plight of the existensialist who sees no chance of winning man's battle with the world.

Although he has been watching the swans for nineteen years, he feels alienated from them when the swans fly away from him:

I saw...

All suddenly mount

And scatter wheeling great broken rings

Upon their clamorous wings.

The poet seems to envy the swans who paddle together in "companionable streams," while he travels alone, having long since given up dreams of "passion or conquest."