Writer : Ray young Bear

Summary

“Grandmother” is written in nostalgic tone. In the poem, the poet has tried to manifest his
intimate relation with his grandmother. The love and affection that she showed towards him in
his childhood (it is obvious she is no more with the poet), is still imprinted on his mind and heart.
To depict the closeness of their relation the poet has successfully utilized two new tools in the
poem –
a) conditional sentences, and
b) sensuous images.

The poet boasts that he was so intimate to his grandmother that if he got even a glimpse of her
from miles away, his sense of sight would immediately recognize that it was his grandmother by
observing her purple scarf and the plastic shopping bag. He was so familiar with her that he
could also distinguish that the “warm and damp” hands that were put on his head were of nobody
else but of his grandmother. It was not that he could only use his sense of sight or sense of touch
to identify his grandmother. His sense of smell and sense of hearing were also equally capable of
recognizing her. He could recognize his grandmother from “the smell of roots” that her hands
gave off.

Most importantly, the words of his grandmother were a source of inspiration for him. When he
used to hear her words, it used to flow inside his body and revive his lost strength and vigour. He
has compared its effect with stirring the ashes of sleeping fire to regenerate fire. Fire is the
source of energy, light and clarity. Similarly, when the poet used to hear her words it used to fill
him with new energy, hope, and erase all his confusions. In other words, her advises were a
source of motivation for him.

ALTERNATIVE SUMMARY
In the poem The Grandmother, the American-Indian poet, Ray Young Bear, draws a picture of
his grandmother, all-loving, all-inspiring. His grandmother would wear a purple scarf round her
head for warmth and she would go to market with a plastic shopping bag in her hand. Her shape
was also quite remarkable. If the poet saw her forma a long distance, he could tell that she was
his grandmother. She would come home working in the field and wash her hands. They were wet
and had the smell of roots. She would put her hands on his head and caress it lovingly. Although
they were wet, they would be warm out of love. Before he looked at her face, the smell and
warmth-would make him guess that it was his grandmother.

Sometimes the poet would go to her grave. He would imagine to have heard a voice coming from
the tombstone. He could feel to be his grandmother. He could feel that her words were moving
smoothly inside him like a stream. They would inspire him. In his sad life he would find a faint
glimpse of hope. He would remember the winter night when they were shivering with cold. His
grandmother would wake up and try to move the fire which was covered with thick ashes and he
would see her from his bed and hope that he would warm his body by the open fire.
The poem expresses not only poet’s love and respect towards his grandmother but uses
grandmother as an epitome for native America. The poem has tried to pay tribute to his Native
American grandmother. The poem is rich in use of symbols and images that brings out a picture
of typical Mesquaki grandmother and her native culture. The grandmother portrayed in the poem
appears to be all loving and affectionate. The poet feels a kind of loss for his grandmother and
expresses his strong desire to be with her.
The poet has used his all sensory perceptions to understand the greatness of his grandmother. In
the first part of the poem, poet uses his eyes to identify his grandmother’s shape, her purple scarf,
and a plastic shopping bag. In the middle part of the poem, he uses his skin and nose to recognize
his grandmother’s warm and damp hand on his head and he could get ancestral smell from her.
In the last part of the poem, poet uses his good sense of his ears to hear her words in the land of
his origin. In this way poet has successfully drawn a picture of his grandmother by various
images appeal to all senses.
The verse of the poem “I’d know her words would flow inside me like the light of someone
sharing ashes from a sleeping fire night,” clarifies the poet’s feelings. He means that wisdom got
from his grandmother helps to search for identity of Native American people. He finds his
grandmother a great teacher for the depth of past and the lesson of life in the present time. The
poet also finds his grandmother all-loving and all-inspiring. ‘Warm and damp’ shows how
deeply, she loved him and “her words flow inside me like the light” shows how poet is inspired
by her.

INTERPRETATIONS

· The grandmother of the poet is the prominent and highly regarded women of contemporary
America who represent the difficulties in Mesquaki tribe.
· The poet assumes and senses that he would see the shape of his grandmother from the miles
away.
· Poet sees his grandmother from his inner eyes that it is his merely assumption only and he
would recognize his grandmother instantly who is coming from the long distance. He even
assumes that if he would see from his outer eyes, he would see his grandmother coming from the
long distance or from the mile away by wearing purple scarf and carrying plastic shopping bag.
· The poet assumes that if he felt hand on his head, the poet know that those hands were his
grandmother’s which are warm and damp with the smell of roots.
· Again, the poet assumes that if he heard a voice from the rock, he would know that he
words are resounded in his heart with instant flow inside him like the light of someone stirring
ashes from a sleeping fire at night.
· The poet implies the rigid suppression to the Mesquaki tribe by the Americans, especially
the white Americans.
· In spite of suppression, discrimination and contempt, the tribe strongly existed in the
American states.
· The poet sustains the cultural ethics, values and norms of Mesquaki tribe.
· The poet reveals the difficulties of women in that tribe, the poem shows that women in that
tribe faces great struggle to sustain their lives. There is the rustic scene of American countryside
where the tribes reside.
QUESTIONS

Q. 1. What images do you find in this poem written by a member of the Sauk and Fox
(Mesquaki) Indian tribe of North America? To what senses do these images appeal?

Ans. The poet has used the sensuous images as effective tools in this poem. As a result he is
successful in creating a vivid picture of his grandmother. These images particularly appeal to our
sense of sight (if i were to see …), sense of touch (if i felt …), sense of smell (with the smell of
roots.), and sense of sound (if i heard …). The poet, through the use of these sensuous images
has tried to express how much he loved and how close was his grandmother to his heart.

OR

There are various images used in the poem, for example, ‘purple scarf’, ‘plastic shopping bag’,
‘warm and damp hands with the smell of roots’, ‘voice coming from the rock’ and ‘a sleeping
fire at night’. All these images are closely related to the activities and life styles of Mesquaki
tribal people. Most of tribal people do not have the opportunity to enjoy a fairly rich and
luxurious life. They buy ordinary stuff in a small amount. As they have to survive on natural
plants, it is natural that their hands smell roots which they use as food. Similarly rocks and night
flies are also inseparatable parts of tribal life. All these images used in the poem are very much
appealing because they provide rural and rustic setting to the poem. These images give the
realistic impression and make the poem very much life-like.

Q.2. How does the speaker has feel towards his grandmother ? In what words or lines does
he make his feeling clear?
Ans: The speaker has an affectionate and respectful feeling towards his grandmother. He
describes his grandmother in such a way that she becomes the source of love and inspiration to
him. He expresses his warm and intimate feeling to her through the words like feeling her ‘warm
and damp hands’ and ‘her words would flow inside me like the light’. Here, the grandmother’s
words are compared with the light of sleeping night fire which lightens the darkness when it is
recovered by removing the ashes. This means that her words lighten the darkness of his life and
W. B. Yeats, the greatest English poet of 20th century, presents the reminiscences of his eventful
young age and contrasts them with his present pathetic old life in the poem, “The Lamentation of
the Old Pensioner.”

The title suggests that the poet is a Pensioner. It means he must be very old and is living a retired
life. He says whenever he is caught in rain he takes shelter under a broken tree. The broken tree
can not protect him from the rain. Here, one must note the point that in England it rains during
winter. It means he is deprived of a reliable shelter, when he needs it most. But it was not always
the case with him. When he was young, he used to sit nearest to the fire, which warmed and
comforted him. You can’t light fire in rain outside. It means he had reliable place to live in when
he was young. Not only that, the cosy parlour of the poet always used to be full with the livelier
company of his friends who talked about love and politics. But today, he misses them as “Time”
has taken away all his friends leaving him old and isolated.
He sees some mischievous boys making weapons for some conspiracy. These ‘rascals’ are sure
to create chaos in the society through some barbarous activities. But the poet is not concerned
about the possible anarchy in the society. He is sad as the time has transfigured him.

The poet laments that the time has made him ugly like a broken tree and therefore, no woman
shows interest in him. However, the poet consoles himself that “the beauties that he loved” are
still fresh in his memory. He holds the “Time” a culprit, who has taken away his shelter, friends,
youth, energy, and charm and wants to spit on its face in disgust for his metamorphosis.

Significance of the Title: The title of the poem, “The Lamentation of the Old Pensioner”,
consists three content words, two nouns (“lamentation” and “Pensioner”), and an adjective, “old”
that qualifies the second noun.

“Lamentation” means mourning or wailing over the loss of some precious things, a privilege
position or an advantage. The second noun used by the poet is “pensioner”. The poet could have
used ‘man’ instead. But he didn’t. It is remarkable. A pensioner is a senior citizen, who is
provided with some (monetary) benifits for the services s/he has provided in her/his youth. It
helps him/her to live in old age.

The poet has become old as the ‘Time’ has cast its spell (effect) and transfigured him into an
ugly old man. It has taken away all his physical charms, energy, and friends. Therefore, he is
lamenting. However, at the same time, he boasts that Time was not able to take away the
memories of his heroic deeds done during the Irish cultural revolutions and Irish republican
movements of early 1920s. It gives him heroic feeling and helps, like pension, to live in old age.
Analysis

The poem is based on a conversation that Yeats had with an elderly poet. He wrote in a letter that
the poem was: little more than a translation into verse of the very words of an old Wicklow
peasant.”
Wicklow, by the way, is a green, rural county south of Dublin. This precise technique of
observation of peasants is what Yeats later recommended to J.M. Sybge upon meeting him in
Paris, and which led to successful works like The Playboy of the Western World.
The elderly peasant’s lamentation is that time has transformed him into someone that is no
longer important or viable. This is in contrast to Yeats’s other, more wistful and gentle portrayal
of age in the rest of the collection. The pikes to which the “old pensioner” refers are the weapons
traditionally used in nationalist uprisings against the British, which the man is too old for, so
regards as futile.
The poem complicates Yeats’s earlier poems, many of which exhort the Irish to contemplate
eternal questions like Time rather than take up their pikes, so to speak, for a passing political
issue. This old man, who is forced away from politics and love, shows the downside of such
contemplative non-participation in life. Of course, he is still tormented by the passions of his
youth for women and conservation, and so his mediation aren’t exactly what Yeats has in mind
in poems like “Who Goes with Fergus?” and “The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland.”

1. Write a brief essay on “Art and Life” or “Life and Art”.

Ans. The skill of creation is called Art. People in possession (having) of
this creative skill are known as artist. Art may be different by its form,
style and time. Although it is different by its form and style, art always
influences human beings. Art always remains as an effective and
important motivational factor for human beings. In order to live a happy
and satisfied life, art is an inevitable aspect of life. An art in its supreme
form is able to provide us the deepest inner freshness which in turn
inspires us to make ourselves happy and amiable. To get rid of
difficulties of life, it is immensely important for us to appreciate. By
appreciating art, we can keep ourselves happy by forgetting the
problems of life.
Human life is very transient (short) and when we die our life
is finished. But despite this appearance of physical existence, an artist
can live an immortal life. Life is sure to come to an end but art remains
forever. Laxmi Prasad Devkota is remaining immortal among Nepali
people for his fine piece of art in, literature in the form of “Muna
Madan”. Other great artist’s of different artistic fields are still immortal
because of their great works of art. When we enjoy art we find
amiability within ourselves thereby inspiring us to appreciate art. It is
indeed true that all works of art provide us the deepest experience and
higher value of our life.
Writer : William Shakespeare

SUMMARY

The poem “Full Fathom Five Thy Father Lies” is a song sung by the Spirit Ariel in
Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest”. The Spirit sings this song to Ferdinand, the prince of Naples,
who mistakenly thinks that his father is drowned.
The speaker of this poem is Ariel who is very powerful spirit of wind who
flies lightly and invisibly playing music and singing songs. Here he sings the song about the
death of Ferdinand’s father. According to him, Ferdinand’s father lies thirty feet below the
surface of the sea. Ferdinand is very worried about the death of his father. Giving him sympathy
Ariel says that his father has got quite meaningful death. His body is not decayed. Every part of
his body has been changed into something beautiful, valuable and strange. His eyes are
transformed into pearls and bones are’ changed into coral. The sea nymphs welcome his death by
ringing the death bell “Ding-dong” every hour.
In this poem, the spirit Ariel has presented very artful and melodious
description about the death of Ferdinand’s father. The prince of Naples is worried thinking that
his father is drowned. He is very sad about the meaningless death of his father. However, Ariel
gives him sympathy by making the death meaningful through his powerful and magical
description. He says that nothing of the dead body has decayed or rotten wastefully. Everything
of the dead body is changed into meaningful and precious objects at the bottom of the sea. Ariel
finally requests Ferdinand to listen to the death-bell rung by the sea nymphs to welcome his
father’s beautiful and meaningful death.
Writer : Gerard Manley Hopkins
An Analysis

The first four line of the octave (first eight line stanza in Italian sonnet) describe natural world
through which God’s presence runs like an electronic current, becoming momentarily visible in
the flashes like the refracted glinting of lights produced by metal foil when rumpled or quickly
moved. Alternatively, god’s presence is rich oil, a kind of sap that wells up “to a greatness”
which tapped with a certain kind of patient pressure. Given there, clear, strong proof of God’s
presence in the world, the poet asks how that human fail to heed (pay attention to; listen to or
reck) His divine authority (his rod).

The second quatrain within the octave describes the state of contemporary human life – the blind
repetitiveness of human labor, and the sordidness and train of “toil” and “trade”. The landscape
in its natural state reflects God and its creator. But industry and the prioritization of the economic
over the spiritual have transformed the landscape and robbed humans of their sensitivity to those
few beauties of nature still left. The shoes people wear saver physical connection between our
feet and the earth they walk on, symbolizing an ever-increasing spiritual alienation from nature.

The septet (the final six lines of the sonnet, enacting a turn or shift in argument) asserts that, in
spite of the fallen of Hopkins’s contemporary Victorian world, nature does not cease offering up
its spiritual indices (index). Permeating (fill) the world is a deep “freshness” that testifies to the
continual renewing power of God’s creation. This power of renewal is seen in the way morning
always waits on the other side of dark night. The source of this constant regeneration is the grace
of a God who “broods” over a seemingly lifeless world with the patient nurture of a mother hen.
This final image one of the Gods’s guarding the potential of the world and contains with Himself
the power and promise of rebirth. With the final exclamation “ah! Bright wings”, Hopkins
suggests both an awed intuition (instinct; insight) of the beauty of God’s grace, and the joyful
suddenness of a hatching bird emerging out of God loves incubation (hatching).

Simple Synopsis

The world is full of God’s magnificence. The electrical images (charged, shining) convey danger
as well as power of God. The poet constantly emphasizes that God’s glory is hidden except to the
inquiring eye or on special occasions. In comparing the lightening to’ shaken gold foil, he may
possibly have been influenced by the gold-leaf electroscope. The opening lines convey Hopkin’s
sense of the power ·and glory of god latent in the world. The question describes what man has
done to the world that should shine with God’s grandeur. Next comes the suggestion of ruin and
dirtiness with the vowel run seared, bleared, smeared. The process is continued by smudge and
smell, which pick up the initial consonant sound ’smear’ and, with new intensification, makes
man’s smell indeed foul. One can also notice, in Line 7, the intensifying effect in the rhyme of
wears and shares and the repetition of man’s with each: the earth is doubly infected (wears,
shares) with man’s filth (dirtiness) as it were. The first four lines thus carry the imagery of the
thunderstorm at first, the sense of brooding expectancy and then the burst of lighting. Here,
Hopkins is concerned with why other people do not respond as he did, and the answer is
suggested in the next four lines, beginning with “Generations have trod, have trod, have trod.”
Generations of men, ignoring the miraculous quality of life, have lost touch with the grandeur of
god and become callous (heartless) to it. Their efforts have all been away from what is most
essential to them. Man has betrayed his inborn nature instead of developing it, and has given
himself up to trade, industrialization and materialism. He has isolated himself from the sources
of knowledge to be found in nature, allowing his greed to destroy his, natural sensitivity to
beauty. The poets sweeping condemnation of 19th century industrialization comes very close to
his condemnation of man himself.”Shares man’s smell” although it could possibly refer to smells
in manufacturing, it suggests physical loathing (hateful). But even at this stage there is hope and
faith.

“And for all this, nature is never spent their lives the dearest freshness deep down things”.
Natural beauty is still a loving force to him, and a constant reassurance of God’s concern for the
world. Explicitly, Hopkins contrasts here the beauty of nature with the ugliness of mankind’s
deeds.

Thus, the poem is a protest against the materialism of the Victorian age. Although man is greedy
and wasteful, he may still hope to be saved as long as God is there. This is an explicitly religious
poem.

1. Refer to the summary

2. The freshness of the nature is renewed by the rise of god early in the morning after the
night.

3. The poem focuses on greatness of the god. The god emerges in everything small of the
world but human always negates it. Although the people of the world are continuously
destroying every natural matter, there is constant renewal of natural beauty from the depth of the
universe because god keeps on rounding the world. The universe is the creation of God and we
are the creation of universe.

4. ‘Seared’ means dried up, ‘bleared’ means dimmed and ‘smeared’ means rubbed over
with dirt. The words suggest that man has no accurate perception and vision by the world. The
world is made degraded, contaminated and made ugly by commercial account of everything and
by ill treatment of man following materialistic view and worldy vanity.

5. The repetition of the words ‘have trod’ highlights the commercial accounts of human
generations following worldly pleasure. Our human generations are marching on from centuries
to centuries continually and rearing, blearing and smearing the world. So, the repetition of the
word certainly expresses the human weakness in the world.

6. What is the theme of the poem God’s grandeur?

Glorifying and praising god’s grandeur describes magnificence of
Omni present god. The poet also shows contrast between beauty of the
nature with ugliness of industrialization and commercial activity.
According to the poet the world is filled with greatness of the
god’s grandeur is reflected like shining from a hammered gold foil. It
also accumulates greatness like oozing of oil from oil seeds on pressing
them. Despite being about the glory and power of the god, human beings
are indifferent towards god which makes the poet feel surprise. Human
beings are following the same worthy path being un-mind full towards
god’s power to punish them. Everything in this world has been made
ugly by materialism and commercial activities because of human beings
involvement in monetary gain. The freshness and beauty of nature have
been blocked by industrial activities and fragrance of nature has been
drowning in the foul order (bad smell) that comes from man and
machinery.

Despite human activities tending to destroy the beauty of nature, it

remains fresh and undestroyed through the soil is bare now because of
human beings as destruction of natural green growth, human beings are
insensitive to toes bareness because of their involvement in commercial
activities like the feet which cannot feel the softness of soil because of
shoe. The poet says that in the depth of the earth there is never ending
source of freshness with which the nature renews itself when the spring
comes. The poet symbolize the sun rise as the renewal of the nature like
the bird that broods and protect us despite our unwise activities and
indifference towards god because god’s beauty is changeless and eternal.
Writer : William Stafford

SUMMARY

The poem, “Travelling through the Dark”, depicts the internal conflict between the mind, a sense
of responsibility, and heart, the compassion, of the narrator. At the same time, through the
symbolic “Dark” of the title the poet is able to portray that the growing affinity of human with
machine is tempting them to collide with the nature, a collision which will be threatening for all
the living species on the planet, not only a doe.
On a dark night, the narrator was driving his car on Wilson River road. At the edge of the river
he found a dead deer. His common sense told him to roll that deer into the gorge because the
road was narrow and a slight carelessness might call for more accidents. He stopped his car and
went near to it. It was a doe and had been dead. But when he dragged it he found that it was
pregnant.
When he observed its belly closely, he sensed that the fawn inside it must be alive. But he also
knew that it could not be born. The tragic fate of the fawn made him emotional. It was difficult
for him to throw the body into the gorge because it would kill the baby instantly.
His dilemma and inactness blocked the street. He listened the people getting restless as
everybody was in hurry to go. They immediately wanted the road to be opened. The narrator
thought very deeply and concluded that it wasn’t practical to leave the dead body of the doe on
the street. It could make more accidents. Therefore, he threw it into the gorge and chose to
perform his duty.
1. Explain the title of the poem. Who are all those travelling through the dark ?
ANS: By the title we know the speaker is driving a motor in the dark. He travels through the
heights and along the jungle. He is nature lover. They are all nature lovers and naturalists who
travel through the dark. “That road is narrow” indicates that the speaker is in the jungle by the
side of the river, not in the highway.
 2. Show how the action develops stanza by stanza.
ANS: The poem has five stanzas and each stanza is interrelated. In the first stanza, the speaker
finds a dead deer on the way and pulls it to the side. In the second stanza, he gets down the car
and sees a deer killed immediately. It is stiff and cold. He pulls it off. In the third stanza, the
speaker doesn’t act but thinks seriously about the living fawn inside the belly of the deer. In the
fourth stanza, he explains the sounds of machine in the car in the isolated place. And in the last
stanza, he pushes the deer into the river.

3. At what point does the physical action cease, to be replaced by another kind?
ANS: In the third stanza, the physical action ceases and mental actions begins. The speaker feels
the warm belly of the dead doe and seriously thinks about the future of the fawn and imagines
different things about it.

4. How do the last two lines complete both types of action ?

ANS: The last two lines complete both physical and mental activities. The first line of the last
stanza shows mental activity and the speaker thinks about the living creatures and nature. But the
last two line describes the physical activity of the speaker and he pulls the doe into the river.
Both activities end.

5. What is the meaning of the last two lines of the poem ? Does the poem moralize?
ANS: The last two lines in the poem means there is a problem in the environment and problem
of life. The life problem can’t be corrected because the doe is already killed which is bitter
reality. The dead body can pollute the environment and the speaker has morality to last duality of
life and to keep environment clean so he completes his duty.

6. Do you think the reference to the alive but never-to-be-born fawn sentimental ?
ANS: Yes, of course, the poet tries to make the poem sentimental and he opens the reality of the
life of the fawn. They are made but dead without birth in the earth. It is bitter reality.

7. Explain the meaning of the word “swerve” in line 4 and line 17. Does the
speaker “swerve” ?
ANS: In line four of the word “swerve” means to change the direction of the car and in line
seventeen the word “swerve” means to change the idea. In line four, the speaker doesn’t move or
change the direction of his car because it makes the condition of deer worse and in line seventeen
he changes his mind and pushes the deer into the river instead of thinking about the fawn’s fate.

8. Stanza 4 is the break in the narrative. How do you explain it’s significance in the
poem ?
ANS: From first stanza to third stanza the speaker describes the condition if deer and it’s fawn’s
fate but immediately in the fourth stanza, the writer changes the subject and describes his
situation. It is important because there is a part of life that they should continue their journey.
The break occurs because the poem moves from physical description to the mental state of the
poet. He changes his mind and decides to push the dead deer into the river.

9. What is the tone of the poem: ironical, sympathetic, and indifferent?

 ANS: The tone of the poem is ironical. At first, the poet shows sympathy on the
fawns but at last he ends the life of the fawn. The poet seems nature lover but kills the doe and
it’s unborn kid. The reader shows love to the fawn but not to the doe. So, in conclusion, the
poem has ironical tone although there is sympathy on fawn.
show the right path to truth, love and goodness.