8. The influence of the Cinema.
9. The necessity to save Religious Institutions.
10. The advantages and disadvantages of life in a great city.
11. The influence of Television Channels
12. Terrorism and Fanaticism.
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Exercise 160
Discuss in the form of a dialogue the pros and cons of the following subjects:-
1. Prohibition. .
2. Alms-giving.
3. Corporal punishment.
4. The caste system. .
5. Luck.
6. The United Nations.
.
7. Lotteries.
8. Hand-industries
9. Asceticism.
10. Geography as a class-subject.
11. Entrance Examinations.
12. Making Global Friendship through the Internet
13. Awards and Recognitions.
Exercise 161
Discuss each of the following subjects in the form of a dialogue :-
1. Is luxury an evil?
2. Is poverty a handicap?
3. Which should be the medium of education in our school-English or the vernaculars?
4. Ought every boy to become a Scout?
5. Which is worse-flood or fire?
6. Which should we use in a big town-well water or tap-water?
7. Which is better-hockey or cricket?
8. War-is it necessary?
9. Which is better-to wear out or to rust out?
10. Should Hygiene be made a compulsory school-subject?
Exercise 162
Finish the following conversations :-
Krishna.- Hurrah J only ten days to the holidays .'
Rama.- I know. I have been counting the days. I am just sick of school.
Krishna.- So am I. What are you going to do with yourself in the holidays?
Patient.- Good morning, doctor ! Can you spare me a few minutes?
Doctor.- Certainly ! Come in and sit down. Now, what is the matter with you?
Abdul.- What is that roaring noise? It sounds like a train.
Kabali.- More likely an aeroplane. Yes ! Up there .' Six of them.
Bepin.- Oh, yes ! They seem to be a great height up
Feroz Din.- Well, Abdul Latif, only three weeks more to the Matriculation examination!
Abdul Latif.- Yes, it is coming very near now. I wish it were all over.
FD.- So do I! And then, no more school.
A.L.- Hurrah ! What are you going to do when you leave school, Feroz Din?
Father.- I am sorry to hear you have failed in the examination, Hari.
Hari.- So am I, father; it was just my bad luck. Look at Govind - lucky
fellow! He passed in the second division.
Father.- So you think it is all a matter of good luck and bad luck?
Rashid.- Here is a puzzle for you, Ghulam; which would you rather be - a sick millionaire
or a healthy beggar?
Ghulam.- Well, that wants some thinking over. I suppose you mean, which is more
important for our happiness - health or wealth?
Bepin.- So you object to corporal punishment in schools?
Ramesh.- Yes, I do. I think it ought to be abolished.
Bipin.- But Why?
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CHAPTER 43
THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY
What is poetry?; Though many have tried to define poetry, no one has succeeded in
giving a satisfactory definition of it. Poetry seems to elude all attempts to describe it. Yet
we should know something about poetry, and learn to cultivate our feeling for it, so that
we may gradually come to recognize it, and know when it is present. The best we can do
is to point out some essential characteristics of true poetry. Before we discuss these
essential characteristics, let us try and understand the connection between poetry and
verse. Verse is the form of poetry. Poets generally (but not always) write their poetry in
verse-form. But there is a lot of verse written which is no poetry at all. Verse is the body,
and the poetry is the soul; and body without a soul is a dead body. We shall undestand
this better as we go on.
Verse is usually printed in a particular way, so that you can tell it from prose at a glance.
But it is the ear, not the eye, which is the true test of verse; for when verse is read aloud it
sounds quite different from prose. Just listen to the different sounds of these two
passages, one in prose and the other in verse :-
(i) "The untrodden snow lay all bloodless on Linden, when the sun was low; and the flow
of Iser, rolling rapidly, was dark as winter."
(ii) "On Linden, when the sun was low.
Alt bloodless lay the untrodden snow;
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly."
The two passages are exactly the same in meaning. In fact, the very words are the same.
No. (ii) contains the first four lines of Campbell's poem called "Hohenlinden'. No. (i)
contains the same lines with the same words differently arranged. Yet how differently
they sound when read aloud ! If we can hear this difference, we shall soon be able to tell
the difference between prose and verse.
The first two points about the verse-form of the passage that we notice are its :-
(1) Regular Rhythm :-
As you read it, can you not hear the regular beat of sound, like the regular tramp of
soldiers marching; or the regular beat of the feet of people dancing? There is nothing like
this regular swing in prose passage. It is caused by the fact that the poet arranges his
words in such a way that the accented syllables, on which we naturally lay stress in
speaking, come at equal intervals. If all the accented syllables in the first line are
italicised you will see that every second syllable must be pronounced more loudly or
emphatically than the others.
"On Linden when the sun was low."
The regular rising and falling in the flow of sounds in poetry, these recurring intervals of
strong and light sounds, like the beat of a
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drum regulating dance movements, is called rhythm; and rhythm is the chief, and an
essential characteristic of verse, as distinguished from prose. This will be made clear later
on.
(2) Rhyme :-
The next point we notice is that the words at the end of the first three lines all have the
same sound - low, .mow, flow. When words have the same vowel sound and end with the
same consonant sound, they are said to rhyme, e.g., keep, peep; jump, lump; hate, late;
crew, few; glide, slide. Rhyme is not necessary to verse (i.e., you can have verse without
rhyme); but generally verse is rhymed. Rhyme serves two purposes; it makes verse more
musical, by giving it pleasing sounds, like the chimes of bell; and it serves to preserve the
verse-form in which the poem is arranged by marking the ends of the lines.
Stanzas :-
If you look at the whole of the poem, "The Daffodils", given on pages 452 and 453, you
will notice another characteristic of verse. You will see that the poem is divided up into
units and that all the units are exactly alike in form. Each unit is of six lines, the first line
rhyming with the third, the second with the fourth and the fifth with the sixth. Such units
or divisions in a poem are called stanzas. Most poems, though not all, are written in
stanzas all of which are of the same pattern.
Verse, then, is characterized by regular rhythm, rhyme and stanzas. Of these
characteristics, rhythm is essential. You cannot have verse or poetry without rhythm. But
while most poems have rhyme and stanza-forms, these are not essential characteristics of
poetry, for we have poems written in blank verse, i.e., verse in which each line has ten
syllables but there are no rhymes at the end.
Having discussed the connection between verse and poetry, we shall now consider some
essential characteristics of true poetry.
(1) Music :-
The first essential of poetry is verbal music. The poet chooses instinctively words of
beautiful sound, and so arranges them that the words near each other will harmonise in
sound, so as to produce what may be called "word music." And he varies this music to
suit the subject, so that the sound of the lines helps to make clearer their meaning.
But verbal music depends not only on the musical sound of the words, but also on
rhythm. It is the combination of lovely rhythms with sweet-sounding words that gives us
the music of poetry. Here are two verses from Dryden's "Song for St. Cecilia's Day". The
rapid rhythm of the first verse well expresses the excitement caused by the war alarm
given by trumpet and drum; the slow and quiet rhythm of the second verse suits the soft
and tender music of the flute and the lute.
"The trumpet's loud clangour
Excites us to arms,
With shrill notes of anger,
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And mortal alarms.
The double double double beat
Of the thundering drum
Cries, Hark ! the foes come;
Charge, charge, 'tis too late to retreat
The soft complaining flute,
In dying notes, discovers
The woes of hopeless lovers,
Whose dirge is whisper'd by the warbling lute."
Now let us examine in detail how poets obtain some of the musical effects.
(a) Rhyme :-
Words rhyming together give a musical chime of sound, and this is one reason why
rhyme is so much used in poetry. Listen to the chime of the rhymes in this verse :-
"Strew on her roses, roses,
And never a spray of yew, In quiet she reposes:
Ah ! would that I did too !" (M. Arnold)
Internal rhymes (i.e., rhymes written within a line and not merely at the ends of lines)
also add music (and a slight apparent acceleration of the rhythm) to a verse; e.g.,
"The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled.
Like noises in a swound !" (Coleridge)
(b) Vowel and Consonant Sounds :-
Words with long open vowels and soft consonants (like 1, ra, n, v, w, z, etc.) produce
sweet, soft, soothing music in these lines :-
"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness." -- (Keats)
"Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn." -- (Keats)
"To dream and dream, like yonder amber light." -- (Tennyson)
"The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves." -- (Keats)
(c) Onomatopoeia :-
This is the name given to the figure of speech
by which the sound of the words is made to suggest or echo the sense.
There are many onomatopoeic words in English; e.g., roar, bang, crash,
clap, bump, bubble, screen, pop, moan, hum, murmur, etc. When they
are talking of sounds, poets will use words to represent those sounds if
they can. For instance :-
"The moan of doves in immemorial elms
And murmuring of innumerable bees." -- (Tennyson)
Can you not hear the cooing of the doves and the humming ot the bees? How is it done?
Some of the words are onomatopoeic, e.g., moan, murmuring; in others the soft vowels,
and above all the m and n sounds, give a humming murmur, e.g., immemorial,
innumerable.
(d) Alliteration :-
This is another figure of speech used in poetry. It brings together words which begin with
the same consonant (or vowel) sound. For Example :-
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"The fair breeze below, the white foam flew
The furrow followed free." -- (Coleridge)
Here the/sounds give the impression of wind blowing.
"I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore." -- (Yeats)
Here the I sounds represent the liquid sounds of little waves, and the sand sh sounds help.
A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire." -- (Chesterton)
The r sounds help the description of a wandering road.
(e) Repetition :-
Repetition of words and pharses not only serves to emphasise the meaning, but often also
to increase the musical effect of a poem.
A work from S. CHAND & COMPANY LTD.
"The woods decay, the woods decay and fall." -- (Tennyson)
"What hope of answer, or redress?
Behind the veil, behind the veil. " -- (Tennyson)
"A weary time ! A weary time !
How glazed each weary eye !" -- (Coleridge)
"In ever climbing up a climbing wave." -- (Tennyson)
"The western tide crept up along the sand.
And o'er and o'er the sand." -- (Kingsley)
And round and round the sand."
(1) Refrains :-
A refrain is a form of repetition. In some poems the same line, or part of it, is repeated at
the end of each verse. Such a repeated line or phrase is called a burden or refrain.
(2) Vision :-
The second essential of poetry is vision. A great poet is a "seer", i.e., a "see-er"; one who
has spiritual insight and can see truths that others do not. The ordinary unimaginative
man is aware only of what he perceives by his senses, and sees only the outward aspect of
what he sees. But the poets see much more. They have, in moments of vision, the power
of understanding, by a kind of instinct, things, their qualities and the relations between
them, which ordinary people cannot see. All true poetry is the product of vision or
imagination for it is the expression of it,
Wordsworth wrote a poem about a matter-of-fact, unimaginative man, called Peter Bell.
Peter Bell saw .nothing but what he saw with his physical eyes. He had no "vision."
"A primrose by a river's brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more."
Now see what a primrose, or any common wild flower, is to a real poet. Wordsworth
himself says :-
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for
tears.
The poet idealises the real. He helps us to see natural objects “Apparelled in celestial
light, the glory and the freshness of a dream”
Page 452
There is suggestiveness in great poetry. It suggests or implies much more than it says. It
has a depth of meaning that cannot be fathomed by one or two readings.
(3) Imagery :-
The suggestion of vivid mental pictures, or images, by the skilful use of words, is called
"imagery." A poet can create or suggest beautiful sight-effects, as well as beautiful
sound-effects, by means of words. This capacity is, of course, part of a poet's gift of
imagination, Poetry, much more than prose, produces much of its effect by images. It
often talks in pictures. The poet's pictures may be drawn from the real world, or the ideal
world of imagination in which he dwells.
Poets have three ways of making us see mental pictures.
(a) By Description :- He may, as a prose-writer does, describe a scene, real or ideal, in
words. Here is Gray's description of the evening of a summer day :-
'The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, The lowing herd wind slowly o'er the lea. The
ploughman homeward plods his weary way, And leaves the world to darkness and to me.
Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight, And all the air a solemn stillness
holds. Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight, And drowsy tinklings lull the
distant folds."
[For examples of verbal descriptions see, "The Sands of Dee" (2nd verse);
Hohenlinden", "Rain in Summer."]
(b) By certain Figures of Speech such as simile, metaphor, and personification about
which you have learnt in Chapter 29. Read carefully the examples of simile, metaphor
and personification given in that chapter. A poet compares one thing with another, and so
suggests some important point about it by an image.
(c) By Picturesque Epithets :- A poet can also call up a picture with a single illuminating
word or phrase. Just examine the epithets of adjectives in these lines :-
"All in a hoi and copper sky,
The bloody sun, at noon." -- (Coleridge)
- What a picture of colour these two epithets call up !
(4) Emotion :-
The third essential of poetry is emotion. Ordinary prose writing (other than fiction)
appeals more to the head than to heart; but the function of poetry is to touch the heart;
that is, to arouse emotion. Who can read such lines as these without emotion?
"And the stately ships go on.
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!" -- (Tennyson)
But it is only emotion that can rouse emotion. If the poet feels
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nothing when he writes a poem, his readers will feel nothing when they hear it. Heart
must speak to heart.
To sum up, therefore, the essentials of poetry are music, vision (including imagery), and
emotion. So we may say that poetry springs from imagination roused by emotion, and is
expressed in music and imagery. This is not a definition for, as we have seen, we cannot
define poetry, but a description of its essential characteristics.
Let us now take the well-known poem "Daffodils" by William Wordsworth to try and
find out what essentials of good poetry are contained in it.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A has! of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay :
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee :
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company !
I gazed - and gazed - but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills.
And dances with the daffodils.
APPRECIATION OF THE POEM
(1) Substance :- The first thing we must do is to read the poem through, carefully. Then
we must ask ourselves: What is it all about? What is the subject? And what does the poet
say about the subject?
The poet tells us that as he was taking a solitary walk beside a lake one bright and breezy
Spring morning, he suddenly came upon a sight that filled him with delighted wonder at
its beauty, and with gaiety of heart. There stretched before his wondering gaze thousands
and thousands of yellow daffodils under the trees beside the sparkling waters of the lake,
"Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." The sight filled him with pleasure; but he did not
know at the time all that the experience had added to his life. For many times afterwards,
memory brought back that beautiful scene as a mental picture, which gave him over and
over again the same scene of gladness.
(2) Language :- The poem is in very simple language and their
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are really no difficult words. (Daffodil is a bulbous plant of the lily family bearing a
yellow trumpet-shaped flower that grows wild in English woods and flowers in Spring).
(3)Imagery :- (a) The first three verses are a description of a host of daffodils under the
trees by the side of a lake, lit up by the sun and dancing in the wind.
(b) There are two similes : the comparison between the solitary poet and a lonely cloud in
the first stanza, and the comparison between the endless line of daffodils and innumerable
stars in the milky way given in the second stanza.
(c) There is also an example of personification in the second stanza and again in the third
stanza. The daffodils are described as dancing in glee and tossing their heads like human
beings and are said to be "such a jocund company."
The statement, "Ten thousand saw I at a glance", is a figure of speech known as
hyperbole; it is a poetic exaggeration not intended to be taken literally.
(4) Sound effects :- (a) The quickened movement of line 6 of the first stanza, in
comparison with the stately movement of the preceding lines, well echoes and reinforces
the sense.
(b) There is an example of alliteration in line 6 of the fourth stanza. "And dances with the
daffodils". Note also the repetition in line 5 of the third stanza, "I gazed - and gazed"; it
emphasises the length of time the poet stood looking in delighted wonder at the beautiful
scene.
(5) Striking lines. The most striking lines are lines 3 and 4 of the last stanza. The "inward
eye" is the faculty of visualising, or calling up mental pictures from memory or the
imagination. Such mind-pictures give us joy when we are alone and at leisure.
We have given here a somewhat detailed appreciation of the poem, "The Daffodils". The
points amplified above in connection with Wordsworth's beautiful poem will make you
understand what you should look for in good poetry in order that you may enjoy in a
better way. But at the high school stage, a continuous description of all the essential
qualities of a good poem is not required. A student's appre-ciation of a particular piece of
poetry may be judged by asking specific questions like the following; What is the central
idea of the poem. What is the poet's attitude to life, or to nature, or to whatever is the
subject of the poem? What is the significance of certain given lines or expressions in the
poem? What picture is sketched in the specified? How are certain sound effects produced
by the poet? figures of speech are to be found in the poem and how can they be
explained? What title for alternative title can be given to the poem?
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SPECIMENS
Here are two short poems with certain questions on appreciation given below each of
them and the answers worked out.
(a) She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove;
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.
A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye !
-Fair as a star, when only one
Is shining in the sky.
She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me !
- W. Wordsworth
Questions
1. Give a suitable title to the poem.
2. Name and explain the figure of speech used in the second stanza.
3. Which lines in the poem show intense feeling? What feeling has the poet expressed in
these lines?
4. What do you think of the language used in the poem?
Answers
1. "The Lost Love" or "She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways."
2. The figure of speech is simile. The girl is compared to the half hidden violet and the
lonely star to emphsise (a) her solitude and obscurity, and (b) her beauty of soul as well
as body.
3. The last two lines. They express the feeling of love and bereavement.
4. The most striking feature of the language is its simplicity. The poet has used simple,
everyday words, mostly of one syllable; yet they produce a poem that has a magic charm.
(b) Laugh and be merry, better the world with a song.
Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.
Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.
Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.
Laugh and be merry : remember, in olden time,
God made Heaven and Earth for joy. He took in a rhyme,
Made them, and filled them with the strong red wine of His mirth.
The splendid joy of the stars; the joy of the earth.
So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky.
Join the jubilant song, of the great stars sweeping by,
Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured
In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.
Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin,
Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn,
Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.
Laugh till the game is played : and be you merry, my friends.
-John Masefield
Questions
1. What is the central idea of the poem?
2. What is the “blow” with which the poet wants us to better the world
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3. Quote three sinking examples of metaphors used in the poem.
4. Explain :-
(a) "the old proud pageant of man."
(b) "Guesting while in the rooms of a beautiful inn."
Answers
1. Life is short and we must therefore laugh and be cheerful, and enjoy all the beauty and
happiness that can be found on this earth.
2. It is our laughter and merriment that will serve as a blow and hit out boldly against
wrong and injustice in the world.
3. (i) "Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span."
(ii) "Made them and filled them with the strong red wine of His mirth"
(iii) "Laugh till the game is played."
4. (a) We are part of the spectacular progress of mankind which is marked with many
glorious achievements.
(b) We should be happy and cheerful together during the short time we are in this
beautiful world in the same way as brothers who are staying for a short while in a
beautiful inn where there is dancing and music.
A work from S. CHAND & COMPANY LTD.
Exercise 163
Read each of the following poems and answer the questions set below it:
1. What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?
No lime to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night?
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance?
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
- William Henry Davies
(a) What kind of life does the poet condemn?
(b) What are the "stars" of which the streams are full?
(c) Name and explain the figures of speech in lines 9-10.
(d) Explain :
"No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began".
2. My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Wherever these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never - failing friends are they,
