[N.B.: Answer all the questions. Figures in the right margin indicate full marks.]
1. Read the following poem and answer the questions after it: 6x5=30
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress ....
a) What type of sentence is ‘unless/ Soul clap its hands …’? (ll.2-3)How does its structure affect its meaning?
b) What kind of image does the poet create of an aged man? How do the words that make it up contribute to this imaging?
c) Does the dependent clause ('unless ... hands') create any conditional meaning in the poem? Elucidate your answer.
d) What is the grammatical name of the 'but' in the first line? How does it affect the meaning?
e) What is suggested about agedness by ' paltry thing' and 'tattered coat'?
f) How does the soul figure in the poem? How is this image constructed?
What attitude to old age do you find in the poem? How does the poet use the language figuratively to suggest this attitude?
2 comments:
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a)What type of sentence is ‘unless/Soul clap its hands…’? (ll.2-3)How does its structure affect its meaning?
Ans:‘unless/ Soul clap its hands …’ is a negative conditional clause with a subjunctive structure. ‘Unless’ is used only in a negative conditional and here it evokes the negative possibility of the soul’s clapping and singing. And the subjunctive structure ‘Soul clap’ (not ‘claps’ which we normally expect after 3rd person singular ‘soul’) creates a tentative mood to covey a feeling that an aged man’s soul won’t probably tune itself to music.
b)What kind of image does the poet create of an aged man? How do the words that make it up contribute to this imaging?
Ans: In the poet’s eyes an aged man is a ‘paltry thing’, ‘A tattered coat upon a stick’ and a soul wearing its ‘mortal dress’. In all these images, the aged man is reduced to an object; he has been objectified. That an aged man wears a ‘tattered’ ‘mortal dress’ gives an idea that it is subject to decay. One more interesting fact is that, the flesh of the aged man is twice compared to a cloth: a. a tattered coat; b. mortal dress. A coat or a dress is something that can be worn out or taken off. This ‘mortal dress’ is contrasted to the ‘soul’ which can still sing and be lively however tattered the flesh gets. The poet may be hinting at the immortality of the soul.
c)What is the grammatical name of the 'but' in the first line? How does it affect the meaning?
Ans: The ‘but’ in line 1 is an ‘emphatic adverb’. If we consider the line without the ‘but’ as ‘An aged man is a paltry thing’, we’ll see that the intensity of the fact that an aged man is an flimsy object is considerably reduced. With the ‘but’, however, it has been emphasised that an aged man is nothing but a paltry object.
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