Leave This Chanting (Summary)

              In the poem 'Leave This Chanting' Tagore wants the religious minded to go beyond the four walls of their shrines to where god really exists with the farm worker and the construction labourer. 

              In the first paragraph the poet says one should leave this chanting, singing, and telling of beads. He questions the religious people that who do you worship in this dark corner of a temple? Open your eyes and see God is not there before you.

         One can see God where the tiller is tilling the hard ground and the path maker is breaking stones. The poet says that one can see God in sun and shower where the tiller and the path maker is and come down to the dusty soil.

        The poet then questions what is deliverance? And where can we find it? God is the creator and master of everything. God has created this world joyfully and is attached with us, then why people are meditating and chanting? They think that when one is doing chanting he is very real to God and he can achieve everything.

            Tagore says that true worship of God means mingling with the humble humanity on terms of equality, and participation in their humble activities. According to Tagore, the rich and the proud can never find God, for they keep aloof from the poor and the downtrodden. He opines, pride can never approach to where those walk in the clothes of the humble among the poorest, the lowliest and lost.

Summary of the poem "The Little Black Boy"

             The speaker is an African child who has to come to terms with his own blackness. Blake builds the poem on clear imagery of light and dark.  Blake’s focus in this poem is on the mental state of the black child. 

            A black child tells the story of how he came to know his own identity and to know God. The boy, who was born in “the southern wild” of Africa, first explains that though his skin is black his soul is as white as that of an English child. He relates how his loving mother taught him about God who lives in the East, who gives light and life to all creation and comfort and joy to men. “We are put on earth,” his mother says, to learn to accept God’s love. He is told that his black skin “is but a cloud” that will be dissipated when his soul meets God in heaven. 

            The black boy passes on this lesson to an English child, explaining that his white skin is likewise a cloud. He vows that when they are both free of their bodies and delighting in the presence of God, he will shade his white friend until he, too, learns to bear the heat of God’s love. Then, the black boy says, he will be like the English boy, and the English boy will love him.

            The child’s mother symbolizes a natural and selfless love that becomes the poem’s ideal. She shows a tender concern for her child’s self-esteem, as well as a strong desire that he know the comfort of God. 

Summary of 'On His Blindness'

            John Milton writes  this sonnet about himself. He became blind at an early age, which he calls as half of his life. Due to blindness, the whole world is dark and gloomy. The gift of being a creative writer and poet, which has been accorded to him by the God is now useless for him. Though the gift or skill given to him by the God would remain with him till death, but he will not be able to use it.

           As God has taken away his eye sight, he has become more submissive and wants to serve God with his poetic power. He was greatly inclined to write poetry in praise of God and present to him a true account of his writings. He wants to do this so that God may not snub him after his death.

           He mildly wants to ask God that how can be required to do work equal to any normal person in spite of his total blindness. In the answer to this heart felt feeling of the poet, his conscience comes to his rescue to tell that he must keep patience as God does not want anything from man. 

        God’s Kingdom is very rich and splendid. Thousands of angels are every time ready to act on God’s command. They carry out God’s wishes on land and sea without rest. The mortals on Earth cannot serve God at this speed, so they must wait in silence for his mercy. Milton says that those who are not able to serve God should simple stand in service of God and wait for their chance to receive mercy of God. Thus sonnet tells us that faith and confidence in God should not be shaken in anyway. 

Summary of the poem ‘Death Be Not Proud'

    

    John Donne starts his conversation with Death by addressing it directly. It shows the power of man over Death. Though man is mortal, he is still superior to Death. The poem depicts the picture of Death as powerless and weak.

     In this sonnet, Donne reflects upon the nature of death. Addressing death, the poet says it that it is not mighty and dreadful. It is not powerful because it does not kill the poet. Rest and sleep are the pictures of death and therefore much pleasure must inevitably flow from it. When the best of the human beings are said to go with death, it is only because that brings rest for their weary bones and relieve their souls from the sufferings of the earth.

    The poet says that it is no more than a slave to fate, kings and desperate men.  Death acts at their command. It resides with poison, war and sickness. Poppies and Charms can also put men to as deep sleep as death can. This sleep is better than the sleep induced by death. 

    Why , then ask the poet, does death feel so proud of itself? Death can bring short interval of sleep, after which the soul wakes for eternity. Thus, with the soul’s awakening, death itself dies. It ceases to exist.

The Poet proves that Death should not be so sure of itself because it is a slave. Death always needs a partner to do the job on its behalf. The bold conversation of the speaker with Death provides a sense of comfort to readers.

Summary of the poem 'Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds'

    This sonnet is about eternal and unchanging love and has been cherished in the past four hundred years for its hopeful and promising note. Its structure and form are the typical example of the Shakespearean sonnet. 

    This sonnet attempts to define love, by telling both what it is and is not. In the first quatrain (First four lines), the speaker says that love—”the marriage of true minds”—is perfect and unchanging; it does not “admit impediments,” and it does not change when it find changes in the loved one. 

    In the second quatrain, the speaker tells what love is through a metaphor: a guiding star to lost ships (“wandering barks”) that is not susceptible to storms (it “looks on tempests and is never shaken”). 

    In the third quatrain, the speaker again describes what love is not: it is not susceptible to time. Though beauty fades in time as rosy lips and cheeks come within “his bending sickle’s compass,” love does not change with hours and weeks: instead, it “bears it out even to the edge of doom.”

     In the couplet, the speaker attests to his certainty that love is as he says: if his statements can be proved to be error, he declares, he must never have written a word, and no man can ever have been in love.

Question- Answers of Kanthapura

 

What is the importance of the heading ‘Kanthapura’ as depicted by Raha Rao in his novel?

 The reader realizes that the community in this village is the hero of the story. The author starts his story by introducing Kanthapura village and its exact location in India and the kind of people who reside there. To be precise, the village is located in a province called Kara near the Himavathy Basin. After introducing the Kanthapura village, the author provides a detailed account of its villagers. In his description, he explains their culture, economic activity and their way of living. For example, the author notes that the people in this village live below the poverty line because of their ignorance and superstition. Therefore, the title ‘Kanthapura’ is important in this novel because every aspect described revolves around it.

 

How does Gandhi inspire Moorthy?

From the novel, Moorthy has never had the first-hand familiarity in speaking to masses. However, getting in touch with Gandhi in his vision gives him the confidence to address a civic gathering something that he has not done before. He moves forward confidently as he pushes the crowd to give him the way to join the volunteers’ band. Therefore, Moorthy is able to overcome his fears by getting his confidence from Gandhi.

 

 

Can we consider Kanthapura as a Gandhi Purana?

Kanthapura describes the period when Gandhi was leading the Non-cooperation movement. Raja Rao mentions sthala Purana in the novel’s preface. Purana is ancient Hindu Literature which is primarily based on Hindu deities and their incarnations. The narrative of the novel goes on describing the events with no episodic division like the Purana.

 

The novel begins with the description of cast based division of the village Kanthapura. Moorthy, the hero of the novel being influenced by Gandhi, started following his principles. First, he gives up foreign clothes instead, starts wearing hand-woven khaddar and urges people to wear. Free charkhas are distributed among the villagers to promote Swaraj. Moorthy appoints a Harikatha man who will tell the stories of Gandhi. People join with Moorthy and become a follower of Gandhi. They are mercilessly tortured; still, they remain firm in the path of nonviolence. Refusal to bail serves as a testimonial of Moorthy’s devotion to Gandhi.

Gandhi is not present in the village, but his influence is prominent. The novel is a microcosm of Gandhi’s life. Gandhi here worshipped as a god and Moorthy, who mimics Gandhi’s actions, is the incarnation of Gandhi. Thus we can call it Gandhi Purana justifiably.

 

How women are represented in Kanthapura?

Women played a vital role in Kanthapura. Achakka is the narrator of the novel and other significant women characters are Rangamma, Ratna and Rachanna’s wife, etc. It presents all the women characters here as obedient and laborious. Their active participation in the struggle against the British is noteworthy. The principle of Gandhi, non-violence, is carried forward by them even after merciless torture.

Rangamma opened a Sevika Sangha for volunteer help to Moorthy’s mission. But the men did not take it well, and whenever they found any mistake in the domestic household, they put the Sevika Sangha at blame. Rangamma mentions that for a woman her husband and family are of utmost importance. Kanthapura perfectly shows women’s condition in pre-independent India, when with so much potential, women are considered only as a subordinate of patriarchy and victims of double marginalization.

The Ode on a Grecian Urn (Summary)

 

The Ode on a Grecian Urn was composed in the spring of 1819 and published in 1820. It is one of the greatest odes of Keats and shows his poetic genius at its maturity. It has an organic structure. The first stanza gives the introduction, the second, third and fourth stanzas the main subject, and the fifth the conclusion.

The poet sees a Grecian urn which has not been affected by the attack of time and has been lying silently on the lap of time. The urn gives the record of a past age more graphically than poetry. Its borders are encircled with garlands of leaves. The poet asks whether the figures depicted on the urn are of gods or men or both, whether they are from Tempe or Arcadia, who the maidens trying to escape the pursuit of mad lovers and the musicians playing on pipes and timbrels are.

The music that is listened to by the spirit is sweeter than the music heard by physical or "sensual" ears. The youth represented on the urn as playing on the pipe will always go on playing under the tree which will never shed their leaves. And the lover who is hotly pursuing the girl will never succeed in catching and kissing her. But he need not be sad, because he will never cease to love her and his beloved will always be lovely.

The trees engraved on the urn will ever remain in their spring freshness and the musician will always continue to pipe new songs without being tired. The warmth of the young man's love will never cool down.

The poet sees a sacrificial procession depicted on the um. There is a crowd of people; a priest is leading á heifer decorated with garlands to the sacrificial altar. The crowd might have come out of some town situated by a river, or on the seashore or on a mountain. The town must have been empty at the time, and it must ever remain empty.

The urn is a genuine specimen of Greek art sculpturing a number of men and maidens, branches and weeds. It seduces us from the ordinary life of thought into the extraordinary life of the imagination. It will continue to exist, even when the present generation will die out, and in the midst of sufferings as yet unknown to us, it will teach us the lesson that beauty and truth are identical the only lesson we ought to know. 

In this poem, Keats presents the enchanting, perfect and immortal world of the urn, as he discusses the destructive nature of the real world and its desires, which cannot be quenched.