Modern Poetry Previous Year Brief (2014-2020)
2020
(a) . How does the poet’s self acquire a cosmic dimension in “Song of Myself”?
Ans. The poet’s ego or self expands, embracing all humanity. He asserts that he is an average American, rough and disorderly, given to the sensual pleasures- eating, drinking and breeding and he is no more modest than immodest.
(b). How does the poet ensure his immortality at the end of “Song of Myself!
Ans. Union with the Divine.
(c) What philosophy of life does Frost give in his poem “After Apple Picking
Ans. Like Adam and Eve, man must continue to work in his life.
(d).Why is Maud Gonne compared with Helen?
Ans.Her personality was high and solitary and most stern like Helen.
(e). How did Yeats receive a piece of “Lapis Lazuli”?
Ans. With a carving on it, from a man called Harry Clifton.
(f) Who is the “She” in the poem The Shield of Achilles”?
Ans. Thetis, mother of Achilles.
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(g) What does Yeats mean by “Lednean body?
Ans. Beautiful figure of Maud Gonne.
(h) How does the poet criticize the role of his society in the poem “Casualty”?
Ans. Saying that people obeyed the unofficial dictate from the IRA that they stay in doors.
(I) What does the poet mean by “Wintry fever in the poem “The Force That Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower”?
Ans. Sickness of old age
(J) what sense, according to Auden, is a modern man prisoner of a system or society?
Ans. Being oppressed and enslaved by social and political systems.
(k) Who is the Tollund Man?
Ans. Who sacrificed to the goddess of fertility in the early iron age.
(l) What does the girl in the poem Punishment symbolize?
Ans. Ireland
Brief- 2019
a) Where does Whitman behold God?
Ans. He feels the presence of God everywhere each hour of the twenty four and each moment.
b) How many sections are there in the poem, “Song of Myself?
Ans.52 sections.
c)What kind of husband does Yeats wish for his daughter?
Ans. He prays that his daughter be married to a good husband who takes her to a home with aristocratic values and traditions.
d)Whom do ‘Leada’ and ‘the swan’ represent?
Ans.Leada represents a Greeck woman and the swan represents the Zeus (or Jupiter)
e) Who is the speaker in the poem, “Mending Wall”?
Ans. The speaker says it all of his point of view in a first person narrative.
f) What is ‘Horn of Plenty’?
Ans.Coruncupia comes from Latin cornu copiae, which translates literally as ‘horn of Plenty’.
g)What does inner weather symbolize? Ans. The spiritual anguish,doubts and conflicts by which the poet is torn and tossed.
h)Who was Achilles?
Ans.Achilies refers to the modern man who is unable to think in a world of cruelty, violence and cowardice.
i)Who is Harlod Wilson?
Ans. A young school boy.
j)To which life is compared in ‘Briches’?
Ans.Life is compared to a pathless wood.
k)What is the meaning of green age?
Ans. Boyhood or the youthful period of life.
I)Who is a Miss Wall?
Ans. Miss Wall is a school teacher.
Brief- 2018
a)In what sense does grass symbolize democracy?
Ans. The grass knows no discrimination by growing at all places, it grows among black and also among white people. Thus it symbolizes democracy.
b)What according to Whitman is ‘the handkerchief of the lord”?
Ans. The grass.
c)What does ‘golden bird’ symbolize to Yeats?
Ans. The liberated soul which neither undergoes any change, suffers from any conflict and confusion of which human beings are victims.
d) What is “intellectual hatred’?
Ans. The hatred of an educated and conscious person.
e)What does the poet assert in the poem ‘Fire and Ice’?
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Ans. The destructive force of human passions, love and hatred.
f)What is the source of the title of the poem ‘Out and Out’?
Ans. Shakespeare’s Macbeth
g) Why does Auden call a lover faithless?
Ans. Because he is a human being with necessary human imperfections and as is bound to be changeable in his love.
h)What does the title ‘The shield of Achilles’ signify?
Ans. Bravery and courage
i) What are “suffered foxes” and “stale fern”?
Ans. Various articles of decoration in Aunt Jane’s room.
j)What are “mule praises”?
Ans. The expressions of the poet’s aunt’s mourners’ grief are only conventional but also stupid. So he calls their mourning ‘mule praises’.
k)What is the moral of the poem ‘Mowing’?
Ans. Real life with all its hard labour,can give greater pleasure.
l) What is ‘Spiritus Mundi’?
Ans. A universal memory and a muse of sorts that provides inspiration to the poet.
Brief -2017
a)What does Whitman mean by the word en masse?
Ans. Democracy
b) How many sections are there in Song of Myself?
Ans.52 .
c) What is the meaning of the expression Harled the little street upon the great?
Ans. The poet means to say that Maud Gone incited common people to revolt against the government and also against the aristocracy.
d) What are the reasons for the gloomy mind of the poet ‘A Prayer for My Daughter’?
Ans. The vision of some approaching anarchy and violence
e)What happened in 1916 in the poem. “Easter 1916”?
Ans.It commemorates the martyrs of the Early Rising, a revolt against the British government in Ireland in 1916, which resulted in the execution of Irish nationalists whom Yeats knew personally.
f)Whom does the poet address as he lands on the shore of Byzantium?
Ans. The golden smithies of the Emperor.
g)What is Auden’s message in ‘Lullaby’?
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Ans.Eros (Physical love) should be transformed into Agape (universal love)
h)Who is the mother of Achilles?
Ans. Thetis, a sea nymph.
i)What does Dylan Thomas mean by Green Fuse?
Ans.Fuge suggests energy or power. It is called green because it is at work in Nature which is green.
j)What kind of poem ‘After the Funeral ‘?
Ans.Elegy.
k)What kind of farm life does Heaney portray in the poem ‘Digging”?
Ans. The hard life of the farmers
I)What does falcon symbolize in the poem “The Second Coming”?
Ans.Falcon symbolizes the intellect.
Brief -2016
a) Where and when does Whitman behold God?
Ans. Everywhere each hour of the twenty four and each moment.
b)What does Yeats see in ‘exile reverie’?
Ans. He sees through his mind’s eye the future years of violence, bloodshed and madness of unruly people.
c)In what sense does grass symbolize democracy?
Ans. The grass knows no discrimination by growing at all places, it grows among black and also among white people. Thus it symbolizes democracy.
d) What is Auden’s message in Lullaby?”
Ans.Eros (Physical love) should be transformed into Agape (universal love)
e) How does Warren define a home?
Ans. As a place where one is forced to meet obligations , no matter how unwillingly.
f) What is the meaning of ‘Gyres’?
Ans. The increasing spiral that can be traced conically starting from a point and eventually expanding to a circle.
g) Why does the wife hate her husband in ‘Home Burial’?
Ans. Because he had been unfeeling enough to dig his own baby’s grave.
h)Who ‘according to Auden’ dies morally?
Ans. The people who fail to oppose the cruelty of the despotic rulers, die morally because of their cowardice.
i)in whose honour does Dylan Thomas write his verses?
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Ans. The lovers whose arms are twined in warm embrace and who also at the same time hold in their arms the sorrows and misfortunes of humanity.
j)What does the girl in the poem ‘Punishment’ symbolize?
Ans. The girl symbolizes Ireland as she was murdered at the hand of a group of oppressors.
k)What does Thomas mean by ‘Spindrift pages’?
Ans.Short-lived nature of his poems.
I)How was young Heaney alienated from his father?
Ans. Because of his foolishness and because he interfered with his serious work on the land.
Brief-2015
a)What is Walt Whitman’s idea of immortality of the soul?
Ans. He believes that the souls blend with the Divine Soul after the release from death.
b) What is the nationality of W.B.Yeats?
Ans. Irish
c)How many sections are there in ‘Song of Myself?
Ans.52
d)Why is Maud Gone compared with Halen?
Ans. Her features and her personality was high and solitary and most stern like that of Helen.
e) What is the central theme of the poem “Mowing”?
Ans. The vision of New England.
f) What type of poem is “In Memory of W.B.Yeats”?
Ans.Elegy.
g) What does the wall stand for in “Mending Wall”?
Ans. The wall stands for barriers.
h)What does “The Force” signify?
Ans.It refers to some powerful energy. The poet means to say that some supreme power is at work in all Nature as well as in the human body.
i)Whom does Achilles refer to?
Ans. The modern man who is unable to think in a world of cruelty, violence and cowardice.
j)What is the theme of the poem ‘Digging’?
Ans.It states the poet’s choice of a career to dig up the perfect words with his pen.
k)What does the poet mean by ‘Wintry fever’?
Ans.Sickness of old age.
I)What is ‘Spiritus Mundi’?*
Ans. Universal memory and a muse of sorts that provides inspiration to the poet.
Brief- 2014
a) What is the basic symbol in the poem ‘Song of Myself”?
Ans.”I’
b) When did Yeats receive the Nobel Prize?
Ans. In December of 1923.
c)What is the name of the wife in the poem “Home Burial”?
Ans. Amy.
d) What is the meaning of the word ‘en masse’?
Ans. Democracy
e) What is the central theme in the poem ‘Poem in October’?
Ans.It celebrates the joy a person feels on the arrival of such a day in course of time.
f) What request does the boy make to his sister in ‘Out and Out’?
Ans.Not to let the doctor cut off his hand.
g)Whom does W.B.Yeats address in ‘When You are Old’?
Ans. Maud Gonne.
h)How does Warren define a home?
Ans. As a place where one is forced to meet obligations,no matter how unwillingly.
i)What does the title ‘The Shield of Achilles’ refer to?
Ans. The shield stands as a sign of bravery and courage
j)What is surrealism?
Ans. A style in art and literature in which ideas,images and objects are combined in a strange way, like a dream.
k)What does the title ‘Lullaby’ signify?
Ans. It is a song of the poet to send his beloved to sleep with her head on his arm.
I) What is the meaning of green age?”
Ans. Boyhood or the youthful period of life.
