2016

English

Subject code: 1186

American Poetry

Time: 4 hours                                                                                                              Marks-80

Part – A

1.   Answer any ten questions:                                                                                     1´10 = 10

      a.  What does "Wild Nights" symbolize?

           Ans : "Wild Nights" symbolizes wild sexual pleasures enjoyed during nights.

      b. What is an elegy?

           Ans : Elegy is a sad poem, written to praise and express sorrow for someone who is dead.

      c.  What does the poet dream of in "Birches"?

           Ans : In ‘Birches’ the poet dreams of going back to his childhood and be a swinger of birches once again.

      d. Why was Mary waiting for her husband?

           Ans : Mary was waiting for her husband to give him a briefing about the arrival of Silas who has come ‘home’ to die.

      e.  What does the poet mean by "deferred dream" in "Harlem"?

           Ans : By the phrase "deferred dream" in "Harlem" the poet wants to mean the dream of equality which is postponed for a long time without materialisation.

      f.  What does the pet mean by "Rowing in Eden" in "Wild Nights-Wild Nights"?

           Ans : By "Rowing in Eden" the poet means rowing in the heaven.

      g.  What do you understand when the speaker says "I" am the darker brother"?

           Ans : When the speaker says, "I am the darker brother" he wants to mean that he is black in colour but has the bond of brotherhood with every American.

      h. What does Whitman offer to the coffin?

           Ans : The poet offers a sprig of lilac to the coffin of Lincoln.

      i.   Whom did the poet hear playing a piano in "The Weary Blues"?

           Ans : The poet heard a Negro playing a piano in the Poem "The Weary Blues". "The blues" were coming from the soul of a Negro.

      j.  How did Mary define home?

           Ans : Mary defines home as "Something you somehow haven't to deserve."

      k. What does Frost mean by the two roads?

           Ans : By the phrase “two roads”, Frost means two or more options a man faces at every critical moment of his life, out of which one is always chosen as the decision.   

      l.   What and where is New Orleans?

           Ans : New Orleans is a Louisiana city on the Mississippi River, near the Gulf of Mexico.

Part – B

Answer any five questions:                                                                                          4 ´ 5 = 20

2. How long will the poet continue drinking the alcohol or nectar from nature?

3. What did the poet and his neighbour do in mending the wall?

4. Can you find any symbolic significance of the poet’s choosing the road not taken?

5. Do you think “I, Too, Sing America” expresses the optimistic view of the Black American slave?

6. Find out the similarities that exist between the poet himself and the tree at his Window.

7. Why was Warren unwilling to hire Silas any more?

8. What is the background of the poem “O Captain! My Captain!”

9. Write a short note on any one of the following: (a) Harlem  (b) Monologue.

Part – C

Answer any five questions:                                                                                        10 ´ 5 = 50

10. Death is the recurring symbol of Emily Dickinson’s poetry. Illustrate.

11. Evaluate Robert Frost as a poet of nature.

12. Justify the title of Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man”.

13. Discuss Whitman as a modern poet.

14. Discuss the mysticism in Emily Dickinson’s poetry.

15. Evaluate “O Captain! My Captain” as an elegy.

16. Evaluate Hughes poem “I, Too, Sing America” as a poem on racial inequality.

17. Discuss the elements of anti-racialism in the poems of Langston Hughes.