Oxford Reading Circle Book-4
Up-Hill
Poem by Christina Rosetti
Question/Answer:
Q.1. The poem takes the form of a conversation. How many speakers are there?
Ans: There are two speakers in this poem. One asking questions, there another answering.
Q.2. How long will the journey take?
Ans: The journey will take from morning to night.
Q.3. What will happen at night?
Ans: The narrator asks if there is a place to rest for the night and if there is a place to rest for the night and if the darkness will obscure said resting place from their view. The guide assures the narrator that there is inn and they will not be able to miss it.
Q.4. What does the traveler worry that she or he might not see in the dark?
Ans: The traveler might meet on the way who have gone before.
Q. 5. Who might the traveler meet on the way?
Ans: The poem speaks to the fact that life is a constant struggle and challenge. Those who are able to succeed at passing the uphill journey will be rewarded by having a place where they will be able to rest.
Q.6. Which words in the first line and in the fourth stanza indicate that the journey might not be easy?
Ans: The journey is a prominent symbol in this poem and is open to a few different interpretations. The darkening sky foreshadows the end of life, and the inn represents the final resting place.
inn = a house providing accommodation, food and drink, especially travelers.
Wayfarers = people who travel on foot
labour = work
sum = total
yea = yes
Up-Hill Poem/ Christina Rossetti
Up-Hill Poem/ Christina Rossetti
Summary:
The main theme of this poem is that life is hard and full of challenges but that there is a place to rest for all in the end.
The remaining three stanzas all concern the rest the traveler will enjoy at the end of the journey. There is an inn which one cannot miss. The wayfarers who have gone before the traveler will be there. Entry to the inn is easy, and there are plenty of beds for everyone. The most enigmatic line is "Of labor you shall find the sum." This seems to mean that the comfort at the inn is based on how hard the traveler worked on his way there.
The poem, then, is more about death than the journey to get there. The journey is hard, long, and up-hill all the way. Once you get there, death is like an inn, comfortable or not as the traveler deserves. At any rate, it is commodious and unavoidable: not exactly heaven but scarcely hell either.
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Christina Rossetti's poem "Uphill" is written using questions and answers. Readers are not told who each of the voices are--they remain unnamed.
The poem is metaphorical in nature (meaning that one thing is compared to another). In regards to this poem, life is compared to a journey uphill. What this means is, given walking uphill is challenging, life is challenging.
Here, the speaker is questioning if life is a continual journey upwards. The answer states that it is. The reference to the journey taking "from morn to night" refers to the beginning of life to death
Here, the speaker questions if there are any places along the road where one can rest. The answerer states that only one place exists--"when the slow dark hours begin." The answerer assures that darkness will not mask the inn. Everyone can find it. What this refers to is the end of life and the one place where all will go.
Here, the speaker questions if the inn will have a "resting-place." The answerer states that a roof will be available and that those who have come before the speaker will allow the speaker to come into the inn unopposed.
Again, the speaker asks if there will be somewhere where the rest can be found. The answerer replies that there is plenty of room for all who have successfully made the journey "uphill." The poem speaks to the fact that life is a constant struggle and challenge. Those who are able to succeed at passing the uphill journey will be rewarded by having a place where they will be able to rest. For some, this inn represents Heaven (where the angels will welcome the newly dead in). Others may attribute the inn to metaphorically represent the ground that opens to accept dead bodies. Essentially, the poem speaks to the questions one has regarding life and the unknown. The answerer of the questions eases the speaker's mind--saying all will be well after the journey has been completed.
Main Theme:
Williams Davies’ ‘Leisure’ unveils the richness of life as embodied in nature and wants us to avoid the falseness of life as exemplified in our daily pursuits. The poem has an important theme that is to change our attitude to nature; from that of indifference to seriousness. The main theme is that we should abandon our material pursuits and establish a firm contact with nature to lead a rich and diverse life. The poem starts with a rhetorical question, i.e. the author is sure you will agree with him that it’s important to have free time. The idea of “stand and stare” is picked up all through the poem. He reminds us that even animals have time to look at things; then moves on to looking at animals and then to broader pictures like the wonders of the night sky and finally Beauty itself – personified as a dancing girl. So by the end of the poem we’ve realized that if we don’t forget our pursuits, we miss everything – all the beauty, joy and movement of life. Thus the writer has criticized the modern man for his leisureless material life devoid of natural beauty.
Q.1) Who is ‘her’ in line no. 9?
Ans: Beauty
Q.2) The line “till her mouth can enrich that smile her eyes began” means that Tick mark ( ✓) the correct answer.
(a) a rich woman smiles with her eyes
(b) eyes and mouth smile together
(c) Beauty’s smile begins from the eyes and spreads to her lips. ( ✓)
Q.3) What according to the poet is a poor life?
Ans: A poor life, according to the poet, is a life, which is so full of worries that we have no time to relax and enjoy the beauties of nature.
Q.1) Who is ‘we’ in the poem?
Ans: ‘We” refers to the human beings who have no time to look and enjoy the beauties of nature.
Q.2) Which words have been repeated six times in the poem? Why?
Ans: “No time”. The phrase “no time” has been repeated six times in the poem to emphasize the idea.
Q.3) Some of the words that rhyme in the poem are
care –stare bough – cow
Complete the list with other pairs of rhyming words from the poem.
Ans: pass – grass, can – began, glance – dance.
Q.4) You have some leisure time on hand and your friend wants you to spend this time in risk-taking behaviour like driving, trying out narcotic drugs or having your first cigarette.
(You wish to avoid them without antagonizing them. You wish to prevent them from doing so. How would you go about it?)
Departures
Manohar Shetty
It was there when I started off:
Pale as a woodshaving, glued
To windowglass, unmoved by
Thumps of bags, the slamming
Of doors, the cheerless goodbyes.
I forgot it for an hour:
The black and white milestones
A fleeting clockface ticking
The distance away from
What had once been home.
The road was dragged back,
A measuring tape; dark
As an eel it unreeled
Glistening and writhing on land.
The bus heaved
On the tangent bends.
The moth was still, like
Something embossed.
Mindless refugee, would it
Whisper sensible secrets to me?
Wrapped in peace, its wings
A neat canvas tent, distance
Never came to an end; live
Miniscule mummy in a pyramid
Of sky, trees and fertile air!
Midnight halt in a strange town:
Lurid yellow glare of stalls,
Odd brand names, a southern
Tongue which slithered
Like snakes in a glass case.
I made uneasy small talk:
Hotel rates, places of interest,
Rents, the distance left.
A few replied with a sleepy air.
Some didn't know, or care.
Back for the last leg -
The stowaway motionless
As a pinned specimen, at home
On a transparent bed of glass.
Was it asleep or dead?
For sixteen hours it had stuck
To one square inch of space!
Blind to my destination, glimpsed
Coruscating from a high bridge;
The waters below a whirling sheet
Pulled out from under my feet;
I felt like a stone
Tensing in the air - hanging fast
To my exemplar
Still rooted to glass.
Manohar Shetty (1886 - 1967) was born in Bombay in 1953. He was educated at St Peter's High School, Panchgani, and the university of Bombay. He has worked mainly as a journalist since 1974. His stories have been published in various magazines, and he has published two collections of verse. A Guarded Space (1981) and Borrowed Time (1988).
Word Meaning:
corruscating = giving off flashes or bright light.
embossed = decorated or marked with a design.
exemplar = example; an ideal example of something, worthy of being copied or imitated
lurid = bright and garish; glowing with an unnaturally vivid brightness
miniscule = miniscule
refugee = somebody who is seeking or taking refuge (shelter)
stowaway = somebody who hides on a ship (here the bus) in the hope of being taken somewhere for free
tangent = touching only at a single point
woodshaving = thin slice of wood shaved off
Q. 1. When do we realize what it is that the poet is speaking of?
2. How are the following described?
a. the milestones
b. the road
c. the town
d. the moth
3. Which words and phrases does the poet use for the moth? (e.g. 'it', 'woodshaving')
4. Where is the poet headed?
5. Why does the poet 'make uneasy small talk'?
6. Does the poet admire the moth? How can we tell?
Poetry:
1. Is there a rhyming pattern in the poem?
2. Does the lack of rhyme make the poem less interesting?
3. Look carefully at the lines of each stanza. Do the sentences end at the end of a line? What effect does this have?