Previous Years: 2013-2020

2013

1. To whom does Walt Whitman pay his respect in “O Captain, My Captain”?
   Ans: Walt Whitman pays his respect to Abraham Lincoln, the president of America in “O Captain, My Captain.
2. What is an elegy?
   Ans: An elegy is a lamentation poem.
3. What does “Wild Nights” symbolize?
   Ans: “Wild Nights” symbolizes sexual pleasures.
4. What does the phrase ‘Lover’s Port’ suggest in “Wild Nights, Wild Nights”?
   Ans: The phrase ‘Lover’s Port’ suggests a place for lovers that is safe from all kinds of danger from the sea or the stormy winds.
5. In “The Death of the Hired Man” the moon is obscured by a cloud. What does it symbolize?
   Ans: It signifies that Silas would die.
6. How does Dickinson describe her experience of going outdoors in summer in the poem “I Taste a Liquor”?
   Ans: Dickinson describes her experience the following day. She is intoxicated with air and has become debauchee after drinking dew.
7. How does Whitman welcome death?
   Ans: The poet welcomes death inviting her to come upon all. He chants a song for death and invites her to come as a ‘strong deliverer’.
8. What do you understand by ‘The Blues”?
   Ans: “The Blues” means sad feelings.
9. Why is it impossible for African Americans to dream or aspire to great things?
   Ans: It is impossible for African Americans to dream or aspire to great things because African Americans are oppressed by white Americans and they have no rights.
10. Who is the speaker in the poem “Harlem”?
    Ans: Hughes may be the speaker in the poem “Harlem”.
11. How was, in the early 1950s, the social fabric of America which was comprised of a black population? Ans: The social fabric was divided between black Americans and white Americans. The black Americans are oppressed by white Americans.
12. What is Harlem and why is it famous?
    Ans: Harlem is a neighborhood of America and it is famous for the Harlem Renaissance.

2014

1. Who is Walt Whitman?
   Ans: Walt Whitman is an American poet, essayist, and journalist.
2. What does the poet offer to the coffin of Lincoln?
   Ans: The poet offers to the coffin the spring of lilac that he broke from the lilac bush in the dooryard.
3. Why does Whitman address Abraham Lincoln as ‘Captain”?
   Ans: Because the poet conceives of America as a ship and Abraham Lincoln as its captain.
4. What does the lilac-bush look like?
   Ans: The lilac bush is tall and growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green.
5. Who was Silas?
   Ans: Silas was Mary and Warren’s old servant.
6. Why wasn’t Warren satisfied with Silas?
   Ans: Warren was not satisfied with Silas on account of the fact that he left his job when Warren needed him most.
7. What does the tree in “Tree at My Window” stand for?
   Ans: The tree stands for nature.
8. Why did the poet take the other road?
   Ans: The poet took the other road because it had a better claim, it was grassy and untrodden so far.
9. What do you mean by the expression “Good fences make good neighbours”?
   Ans: It is the traditional belief that those who maintain good fences between them become good neighbors.
10. What inspired Langston Hughes to write the poem ‘The Negro Speaks of Rivers’?
    Ans: The beauty and majesty of the Mississippi river inspired Langston Hughes to write the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”.
11. What attitude to America does the poet express by “I, too, Sing America”?
    Ans: An attitude of love and patriotism.
12. What is New Orleans?
    Ans: New Orleans is one of the states of America.

2015

1. How does Whitman welcome death?
   Ans: The poet welcomes death by chanting a song that tells her to come when she comes unfalteringly.
2. What is the earth right place for?
   Ans: The earth is right for love.
3. Where is Harlem?
   Ans: Harlem is the name of a neighborhood in New York City.
4. Whom does Whitman call “Captain”?
   Ans: Abraham Lincoln.
5. What was Mary’s idea about the return of Silas?
   Ans: Mary’s idea about the return of Silas was that he came home in his weak and helpless condition.
6. What forced the branches of Birches bend?
   Ans: Ice forced the branches of Birches to bend.
7. What do you understand by ‘The Blues”?
   Ans: “The Blues’ means sad feelings or feelings of despair or sorrow.
8. What was Dickinson’s idea about liquor?
   Ans: Dickinson imagined a liquor that had never been brewed in large cups of pearl. Such a liquor was not available even from all the vats upon the river Rhine.
9. Whom did Dickinson feel moving ‘to and fro’ in “I felt a funeral in my brain”?
   Ans: Dickinson felt that a funeral ceremony was taking place in her brain. The mourners kept treading ‘to and fro’.
10. Who was Langston Hughes?
    Ans: Langston Hughes was a great black American poet of the 20th century.
11. Why does the poet call grass as ‘hoary grass”?
    Ans: The poet means to make an implied comparison between the apples and grass and by calling grass as ‘hoary’ he wants to convey his idea of the uselessness of grass compared with the highly valuable fruit apples.
12. Did Langston Hughes love America?
    Ans: Yes, he did. He loved America very much.

2016

1. What does “Wild Nights” symbolize?
   Ans: “Wild Nights” symbolizes sexual pleasures.
2. What is an elegy?
   Ans: See 2013 (b) num.
3. 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. 
4. Why was Mary waiting for her husband?
   Ans: Mary was waiting for her husband to give him a briefing about the arrival of Silas.
5. What does the poet mean by ‘deferred dream’ in “Harlem”?
   Ans: The poet means by “deferred dream’ the dream that is not realized shortly but is postponed or delayed in realization.
6. What does the poet mean by “Rowing in Eden” in “Wild Night-Wild Nights”?
   Ans: By “Rowing in Eden” the poet means rowing in heaven.
7. 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 the black in colour but has the bond of brotherhood with every American.
8. What does Whitman offer to the coffin?
   Ans: Lilac-bush
9. Whom did the poet hear playing a piano in “The Weary Blues”?
   Ans: The poet heard a Negro playing the piano in “The Weary Blues”.
10. How did Mary define home?
    Ans: Mary defined home as something you somehow don’t deserve.
11. What does Frost mean by the two roads?
    Ans: By the two roads, Frost means two or more options a man faces at every critical moment of his life. 
12. What and where is New Orleans?
    Ans: New Orleans is a Louisiana city on the Mississippi River.

2017

1. What does wall symbolize the poem Mending Wall?
   Ans: The wall in the poem “Mending Wall” symbolizes the political, social, physical, and emotional walls that we face in our lives.
2. Why did Silas leave his job with Warren?
   Ans: Silas left his job with Warren because the later was unable to provide Silas with the pocket money necessary for buying tobacco.
3. What does ‘fearful trip’ refer to in the poem O Captain My Captain?
   Ans: Fearful trip refers to Lincoln’s campaign during his presidency for the abolition of slavery in America.
4. What is the dream of the speaker in the poem ‘I Too Sing America”?
   Ans: The speaker dreams that someday he will sit at the table with the White guests.
5. How does Mary define Home?
   Ans: Mary defined home as something you somehow don’t deserve.
6. What are the rivers in the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”?
   Ans: There are four rivers. They are -the Euphrates, the Congo, the Nile, and the Mississippi.
7. What do the Blues stand for in the poem Weary Blues?
   Ans: The Blues stands for the real-life blues song of black people.
8. What does Emily Dickinson mean when she says, ‘I taste a liquor”?
   Ans: The poet does not use the word ‘liquor’ in the poem in a literal sense to mean any alcoholic drink. She uses the word to mean the beauty of nature.
9. What is Jazz music?
   Ans: Jazz music is a type of music of black Americans.
10. What happens when a dream in differed?
    Ans: When a dream is deferred, it loses freshness and vitality.
11. What does Frost mean when he says, “Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner weather”?
    Ans: Here the poet points out the difference between man and nature. Nature is subject to outer circumstances while man is subject to the phenomena going on inside the mind.
12. Identify the relation between Mary, Warren and Silas.
    Ans: Warren and Mary are husband and wife and Silas is their servant.

2018

1. How does Whitman welcome death?
   Ans: Whitman welcomes death by chanting a song to welcome death.
2. What do you mean by the expression “Good fences make good neighbours”
   Ans: “Good fences make good neighbors’ means that if good fences are maintained between two neighbors, quarrel decreases and good friendship increases between them.
3. What is “Harlem”?
   Ans: See 2015 (c) num.
4. How does the poet express her thoughts about the wild nights?
   Ans: Wild nights express wild sexual pleasures enjoyed during nights.
5. Why was there the possibility of Warren’s maltreating his old servant?
   Ans: There was the possibility of Warren maltreating Silas because Warren was annoyed with Silas because he left his job when Warren needed him most.
6. How does the poet react to the melancholy song of the Negro?
   Ans: The poet reacts to the melancholy song of the Negro saying that the blues singer’s playing on Piano seems to moan as though it were crying out in anguish.
7. How does the lilac-bush look?
   Ans: See 2014 (d) num.
8. Where is the funeral taking place?
   Ans: The poet imagines that a funeral is taking place inside her brain.
9. Why did the poet take the other road in the poem “The Road not Taken”?
   Ans: See 2014 (h) num.
10. Where does Negro playing on a piano?
    Ans: The Negro was playing on a piano on Lenox Avenue in New York City in the faint light of an old gas light.
11. Whom does Whitman call “Captain”?
    Ans: Abraham Lincoln.
12. What do the mourners do after the funeral service is over?
    Ans: After the funeral service is over the mourners lift a box.

2019

1. What does the tree in ‘Tree at My Window stand for?
   Ans: The tree in ‘Tree at My Window stands for nature.
2. What does Whitman offer to the coffin?
   Ans: The poet offers to the coffin the lilac he picked from the bush in the dooryard.
3. What does ‘Wild Nights’ symbolize?
   Ans: ‘Wild Nights’ symbolizes unbounded/unlimited sexual pleasures.
4. What are ‘Birches”?
   Ans: ‘Birches’ are thin-leaved deciduous trees.
5. How does the poet like to go toward heaven?
   Ans: The poet likes to go toward heaven by climbing up the black branches of the birch trees.
6. How did Mary define home?
   Ans: According to Mary home is “something you somehow haven’t to deserve”.
7. Where is Harlem?
   Ans: Harlem is a neighborhood in the northern section of the New York City borough of Manhattan.
8. Which of the two roads did Robert Frost take?
   Ans: Of the two roads, Robert Frost takes the untrodden one.
9. Who was Langston Hughes?
   Ans: Langston Hughes was an American novelist, poet, writer, and playwright.
10. What kind of liquor does Dickinson prefer?
    Ans: Dickinson prefers liquor that is never brewed.
11. Whom did Dickenson feel moving ‘to and fro’ ‘in I Felt a Funeral in My Brain?
    Ans: The mourners moving ‘to and fro’ made the poet feel the existence of a funeral in her brain.
12. What inspired Langston Hughes to write the poem The Negro Speaks of Rivers?
    Ans: The Mississippi River inspired him to write the poem.

2020

1. What does Dickinson mean by “Rowing in Eden”?
   Ans: The poet imagines that the sea is her paradise -Eden and rowing in the sea would be like rowing in Paradise.
2. What is Euphrates?
   Ans: Euphrates is the name of a river in south-west Asia.
3. What is Dickinson intoxicated about?
   Ans: Being intoxicated, she reels through endless summer days.
4. Where is the funeral taking place?
   Ans: The funeral is taking place inside her brain.
5. What is the right place for?
   Ans: The earth is the right place for love.
6. What does the poet mean by ‘deferrer dream’ in Harlem?
   Ans: The poet means by ‘deferred dream’, the dream that is not realized shortly but is postponed or delayed in realization.
7. What does the phrase ‘Lover’s port’ suggest in Wild Nights Wild Nights?
   Ans: The phrase ‘Lover’s port’ suggests a place for lovers that is safe from all kinds of danger.
8. How does Whiteman welcome death?
   Ans: Whiteman welcomes death by chanting a song that tells her to come when she comes unfalteringly.
9. What does the poet mean by ‘fearful trip’?
   Ans: ‘Fearful trip’ refers to Lincoln’s campaign during his president-ship for the abolition of slavery from America.
10. What did Mary request her husband about Silas?
    Ans: Mary requested her husband to be kind to Silas.
11. What is the relation among Marry, Warren and Silas?
    Ans: Mary and Warren are husband and wife and Silas is their servant.
12. What does the poet hear when the mourners lift the box?
    Ans: The poet hears a creak across her soul.

2021

2022