2012

1. What is ‘galingale”?
   Ans: It is a sedge – like plant with aromatic roots.
2. What is the source of the poem, “The Lotos Eaters”?
   Ans: The poem is based on the story in “The Odyssey” of Homer.
3. What is the name of Ulysses’ son?
   Ans: The name of Ulysses’s son is Telemachus.
4. Who was the scholar Gypsy?
   Ans: He is the scholar who took to Gypsy Company and wandered with them in search of truth.
5. Why did Lucrezia’s lover hope to get money from Lucrezia?
   Ans: Her lover is under gambling debts. So, he hopes to get money from Lucrezia to clear the debts.
6. Who caught Lippo at night?
   Ans: Fra Lippo Lippi was caught by the watchman at night.
7. What is the law of the goblin fruit?
   Ans:
8. What does Arnold lament in “Dover Beach”?
   Ans: In Dover Beach, Arnold laments for the loss of religious faith in the Victorian age.
9. Who is Thyrsis?
   Ans: Thyrsis is the name of a shepherd in Theocritus. But in Arnold’s poem “Thyrsis”, he is the pastoral name standing for Arnold’s friend, Arthur Huge Clough.
10. Who is Willie?
    Ans:
11. What kind of joy did Hopkins feel when he prayed for the blacksmith?
    Ans: When he prayed for the blacksmith, Hopkins felt the joy of Divine Power.
12. What did Felix Randal use to make?
    Ans: Felix Randal used to make horseshoes.

2013

1. How did Browning divide people in “A Grammarian’s Funeral”?
   Ans:
2. What type of poem is “Locksley Hall”?
   Ans: Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Lockley Hall “is a dramatic monologue cantering or unrequited love.
3. What kind of area did the Scholar gipsy love?
   Ans: The Scholar Gipsy loved solitary or isolated area.
4. Who sang the Choric song in “The Lotos Eaters”?
   Ans: The choric song was sung by all the sailors who had tasted the lotos fruit and flowers.
5. What is Bab-lock-hithe?
   Ans: Bab-lock hithe is a ferry on the Thames, a few miles away from Oxford.
6. To what type of lily is Laura compared?
   Ans:
7. How did the priest pray on behalf of Randal?
   Ans: The priest prayed “Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended”.
8. What is “the eternal note of sadness”?
   Ans: To Arnold, the sound made by the sea- waves is “the eternal note of sadness”.
9. Why is Margaret crying?
   Ans: Margaret is crying seeing the leaves fall during Autumn.
10. What kind of woman was Lucrezia?
    Ans: Lucrezia was a greedy, faithless and soulless woman having serpentine beauty.
11. What is Arnold’s view about Truth?
    Ans: According to Arnold, truth is not a commercial product. Nothing worldly can purchase it.
12. What is the Victorian Compromise?
    Ans: The Victorian compromise refers to a balance between traditional values and modern progress during the Victorian era.

2014

1. Why did the sailors decide not to return home?
   Ans: Under the influence of the lotos, the sailors didn’t want to go home because the lotos made them tired of sailing and rowing.
2. How does the poem “Ulysses” end?
   Ans:
3. Who are compared to rats in “Fra Lippo Lippi”?
   Ans: In “Fra Lippo Lippi,” the monks who seek pleasure and visit prostitutes are compared to rats.
4. What does ‘Ithaca’ symbolize?
   Ans:
5. Who is in the poem “Dover Beach” addressed to?
   Ans: Arnold’s wife is addressed in the poem “Dover Beach”.
6. What is the theme of the poem “An Apple Gathering”?
   Ans:
7. Why is the modern life called a strange disease?
   Ans: Modern life is called a strange disease because of its materialism and skepticism.
8. Who was Andrea del Sarto?
   Ans: Andrea del Sarto was a great painter of the Florentine School.
9. What does “The Sea of Faith” symbolize?
   Ans: “The Sea of Faith” symbolizes religious belief.
10. What do you mean by “Brute Beauty”?
    Ans: “Brute Beauty” means natural, untouched beauty.
11. What is the source of mankind’s sorrow?
    Ans: The first disobedience or original sin is the source of mankind’s sorrow in Hopkin’s “Spring and Fall”.
12. What does Arnold lament in Dover Beach for?
    Ans: Arnold laments because people stopped believing in religion during the Victorian era.

2015

1. What does the poem “Locksley Hall” represent?
   Ans: The poem “Locksley Hall” represents young life and its ups, downs, and dreams.
2. What does Ulysses symbolize?
   Ans:
3. How was the religious faith of the Victorians?
   Ans: Victorians had various religious beliefs, influenced by science and technology advancements.
4. “My pipe is lost” What is meant by “pipe”?
   Ans: Pipe here means poetic inspiration.
5. Who does Corydon stand for in Arnold’s “Thyrisis”?
   Ans: In “Thyrsis”, Corydon stands for Arnold himself.
6. What happened to the men who ate the lotos at the land of the ‘Lotos Eaters’?
   Ans: They got lazy and lost interest in going home.
7. What is “gypsy lore”?
   Ans: Gypsy lore is what gypsies know about reading people’s thoughts
8. Who was Margaret?
   Ans: The name Margaret refers to any child.
9. Who carry the dead body of the Grammarian?
   Ans:
10. How was the hair of Laura?
    Ans:
11. “I am become a name,” Who said this?
    Ans: Ulysses said so.
12. What is the source of the poem “The Lotos Eaters”?
    Ans: The poem is based on the story in “The Odyssey of Homer”.

2016

1. Who was Oenone?
   Ans. Oenone was Paris’ first wife in Greek myths, and she was a mountain nymph.
2. Who was Andrea’s wife?
   Ans. Lucrezia was Andrea’s wife
3. What type of poem is ‘Thyrsis‘?
   Ans. “Thyrsis” is a pastoral elegy poem.
4. Which bird is called the windhover?
   Ans. The windhover is another name for the kestrel, a small falcon.
5. Who are the lotos-eaters?
   Ans. The lotos-eaters are people in the Odyssey who lived in a sleepy state from eating the lotos.
6. Who was called “the faultless painter”?
   Ans. Andrea del Sarto’ was called “the faultless painter”.
7. What is Dover famous for?
   Ans. Dover is famous for its White Cliffs and historic castle.
8. What is a dramatic monologue?
   Ans. A dramatic monologue is when a character speaks alone, expressing their thoughts and feelings to the audience.
9. What kind of poem is ‘The Scholar Gipsy’?
   Ans. The Scholar Gipsy’ is a pastoral elegy.
10. Who is the speaker in the poem ‘The Last Rider Together”?
    Ans. A rejected lover is the speaker in the poem ‘The Last Rider Together”.
11. How did Tithonus become immortal?
    Ans. Tithonus became immortal by asking immortality to Aurora, the goddess of dawn.
12. Who writes the poem ‘Pied Beauty’?
    Ans. GM Hopkins writes the poem “Pied Beauty”.

2017

1. Who is Amy?
   Ans. Amy is the speaker’s cousin who rejected him to marry.
2. What gift does Tithonus urge to take back?
   Ans. Tithonus urges Aurora, his lover, to take back the gift of immortality.
3. Where do Andrea and Lucrezia live?
   Ans. Andrea and Lucrezia live in Florance.
4. Who is Neptune?
   Ans. Neptune is the Roman God of the sea.
5. What is the source of the poem “The Scholar Gypsy”?
   Ans. Joseph Glanvill’s book, The Vanity of Dogmatizing.
6. What is a monody?
   Ans. A monody is a sad song or poem in which a single person laments another’s death.
7. What do you understand by “Brute beauty”?
   Ans. “Brute beauty” means the beauty of natural and untouched.
8. What is the meaning of ‘Felix’?
   Ans. Felix means happy in Latin.
9. What type of poem is “Andrea del Sarto”?
   Ans. “Andrea del Sarto” is a dramatic monologue poem.
10. How old was Fra Lippo Lippi when he renounced the worldly pleasures?
    Ans. He was 8 years old when he renounced worldly pleasures.
11. Who is the speaker of the poem “My Last Duchess”?
    Ans. The Duke of Ferrara.
12. Who was Sophocles?
    Ans. Sophocles was an ancient Greek writer who wrote many plays.

2018

1. How did Aurora grant immortality to Tithonus?
   Ans. Aurora asked Zeus to make Tithonus grant him immortality, and he did.
2. Who is the listener in “My Last Duchess”?
   Ans. The listener is a person helping a duke arrange a marriage.
3. With what the fallen leaves are compared?
   Ans. The fallen leaves are compared to human lives in “Spring and Fall.”
4. What is Victorian compromise?
   Ans. The Victorian Compromise refers to a balance between traditional values and modern progress during the Victorian era.
5. What is Tennyson’s opinions about knowledge and wisdom?
   Ans. Tennyson believes knowledge fades, but wisdom stays.
6. How is Andrea inferior to other painters?
   Ans. Andrea is inferior to other painters because they have divine visions while Andrea himself lacks such visions.
7. What is meant by ‘shepherd’s holiday’?
   Ans. A “shepherd’s holiday” refers to a time when Arnold was not very productive from 1857 to 1866.
8. What does ‘Spring’ suggest in the title?
   Ans. “Spring” in the title suggests both the season of growth and the Garden of Eden.
9. Who sang the choric song in “The Lotos Eaters”
   Ans. ‘The sailors’ who ate the lotos, sang the choric song.
10. What is a dramatic monologue?
    Ans. A dramatic monologue is when a character speaks alone, expressing their thoughts and feelings to the audience.
11. What is “the eternal note of sadness”?
    Ans. “The eternal note of sadness” is the sound of the sea in “Dover Beach.”
12. Who was Felix Randal?
    Ans. Felix Randal was a horseshoe maker or farrier.

2019

1. “Comrades, leave me here a little”- Why does the speaker ask his friends to leave him there a little?
   Ans. The speaker wants to stay at Locksley Hall for a bit longer because he feels Amy’s presence there will help him feel better.
2. Who was called the faultless painter?
   Ans. ‘Andrea del Sarto’ was called “the faultless painter”.
3. Why is Clough compared to the cuckoo?
   Ans. Clough is compared to a cuckoo because like the cuckoo leaves England when storms come, Clough left the world when religious storms were strong in Oxford.
4. What is expressed through the words Brute beauty?
   Ans. “Brute beauty” means the beauty of natural and untouched.
5. Who was Oenone?
   Ans. Oenone was Paris’ first wife in Greek myths, and she was a mountain nymph.
6. Who are compared to rats in Fra Lippo Lippi?
   Ans. In “Fra Lippo Lippi,” the monks who seek pleasure and visit prostitutes are compared to rats.
7. “And we are here as on a darkling plain”- What is referred to here?
   Ans. The human existence is compared to a dark battlefield where friends enemies fight each other in total confusion.
8. Why is the poet’s heart scared in the poem The Windhover?
   Ans. The poet thinks of himself as a sinner. He is scared thinking about the creation of God.
9. How was the river flowing in the land of Loto’s Eaters?
   Ans. The river flowed from the inside of the island out to the sea.
10. What is Westminster Abbey?
    Ans. Westminster Abbey is a big church in London where important people get crowned and buried.
11. What was the cause of the spiritual crisis in the poem “The Scholar Gipsy?
    Ans. ‘The death of the spiritual values of the society’ was the cause of the spiritual crisis in the poem “The Scholar Gipsy”.
12. Who wrote the poem, Pied Beauty?
    Ans. GM Hopkins wrote this poem.

2020

1. What is Locksley Hall?
   Ans. “Locksley Hall” is a poem composed by Alfred Tennyson in 1835 and published in his 1842 volume of Poems.
2. Who is the speaker in the poem “The Last Ride Together”?
   Ans. A rejected lover is the speaker in the poem ‘The Last Rider Together’.
3. What is “gipsy lore”?
4. Why is Margaret crying?
5. What type of poem is ‘Oenone”?
   Ans. “Oenone” is a poem written by Alfred Tennyson in 1829. The poem describes the Greek mythological character Oenone and her witnessing incidents in the life of her lover, Paris, as he is involved in the events of the Trojan War.
6. How does the Duke treat his wife?
   Ans. The Duke treats his wife as his personal property or object.
7. What is Dover?
   Ans. Dover is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel.
8. What did Felix Randal used to make?
   Ans. The poem is used to make a strong bond between the man and his occupation.
9. Who, according to Tithonus, is a happy man?
   Ans. According to Tithonus, a man is happy if he belongs to the power to die.
10. What does the phrase “Andrea del Sarto” mean?
    Ans. It means that Andrea is the son of a tailor.
11. “I know the Fyfield tree”-What is the Fyfield tree?
    Ans. The Fyfield Elm, also known as the Tubney Tree, was a hollow wych-elm about thirty inches in diameter marking the parish boundary.
12. Why was Lippo arrested by a group of watchmen?
    Ans. Lippo was arrested by a group of watchmen because he was walking in a bad area where prostitutes hang out late at night.

Brief Questions with Answers from SET Suggestion-2022 (3rd Year)

Alfred Tennyson

1. When was Tennyson named as the poet laureate?
   Ans: After the death of William Wordsworth in 1850, Tennyson was named as the poet laureate.
2. How was the religious faith of the Victorians? [NU. 2015]
   Ans: Victorian age was an interesting time when old religious beliefs started getting questioned due to progress made in science and technology.
3. What is Victorian compromise? [NU. 2103, 2018]
   Ans: The compromise between religion and science, reason and faith, democracy and aristocracy, and conjugal felicity and married life in Victorian era is considered as Victorian Compromise. 
4. What is Tennyson’s opinions about knowledge and wisdom?
   Ans: According to Tennyson, a person can acquire knowledge more rapidly than wisdom.

Locksley Hall

5. What does the poem “Locksley Hall” represent? [NU. 2015]
   Ans: According to Tennyson, the poem represents “young life, its good side, its deficiencies, and its yearnings:”
6. What inspired Tennyson to write “Locksley Hall”?
   Ans: Tennyson’s son Hallam recalled that his father said the poem was inspired by Sir William Jones’s prose translation of the Arabic Mu’allaqat.
7. What type of poem is “Locksley Hall”? [NU. 2013]
   Ans: Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Locksley Hall” is a dramatic monologue centring on unrequited love.
8. What is the setting of the poem “Locksley Hall”?
   Ans: The poem is set in England at a building (Locksley Hall) overlooking the sea.
9. Who is the speaker of the poem “Locksley Hall”? [DU (affi.) 2018].
   Ans: The speaker of the poem is a young suitor whose beloved Amy leaves him to marry a boorish man of suitable financial means.
10. Who is Amy’s husband?
    Ans: He is a boorish man whose character the speaker disparages. 
11. How are Amy’s parents?
    Ans: They are the apparent taskmasters who opposed Amy’s relationship with the speaker of the poem “Locksley Hall”. 
12. What is the theme of the poem “Locksley Hall”?
    Ans: The theme of the poem is the bitterness of unrequited love. The speaker first recalls the happy times at Locksley Hall with Amy, the woman he loved. But after Amy left him, he became extremely bitter and angry. He heaps curses on her and the man she chose. He ends the poem by hoping that a storm destroys Locksley Hall. 
13. How much did the speaker love Amy?
    Ans: The speaker says, “I had loved thee more than ever wife was loved”.
14. Why does the speaker berate Amy?
    Ans: The speaker berates Amy for forsaking him, saying she apparently never truly loved him.
15. What is Pleiades?
    Ans: Pleiades is a cluster of stars in the constellation Taurus. 
16. In what season, did the speaker confess his love to Amy?
    Ans: In the beautiful season of spring, the speaker confessed his love to Amy.
17. How were the eyes of Amy?
    Ans: Her eyes were light brown in colour like a hazel nut.
18. What is the glass of Time?
    Ans: It is an ancient device used to measure the passage of a few minutes or an hour of time.
19. Who is the puppet to a father’s threat and how?
    Ans: Amy is the puppet to a father’s threat. Her father threatened her and she obeyed him like a slave and married another.
20. How did Amy’s father control her?
    Ans: Amy’s father, controls her as if she were a puppet. She therefore heeds his threat.
21. What type of man is Amy’s husband?
    Ans: Her husband is a gross and unrefined fool.
22. What were the principal considerations of Victorian society?
    Ans: Social status and wealth were the principal considerations of Victorian society.
23. How would Amy become like her mother?
    Ans: Amy would become like her mother by lecturing her own child in the way that her mother lectured her.
24. What has Nature made the women?
    Ans: Nature had made the women such that they are swayed more by impulses than by reason.
25. “Woman is the lesser man” – What is meant here?
    Ans: Here it means that woman is inferior to man.
26. Who is Joshua?
    Ans: Joshua is a Biblical figure. According to the Biblical story, when Joshua had conquered Amorites, he ordered. the sun and the moon to stand still upon Gibeon in the valley of Ajalon; and both the heavenly bodies stood still until the Israelites had avenged themselves upon their enemies.
27. Who is Amy? [NU. 2017]
    Ans: Amy is the speaker’s cousin who rejected him to marry a boorish man of suitable financial means.
28. “Comrades, leave me here a little”-Why does the speaker asks his friends to leave him there a little? [NU. 2019]
    Ans: The speaker of the poem has returned to Locksley Hall after a number of years. His return to the scenes and sights stirs in him old memories and desires and so he asks his companions to leave him alone for some time.
29. What is Locksley Hall? [NU. 2020]
    Ans:.Tennyson says, ‘Locksley Hall is an imaginary place’. Thus, it is an imaginary mansion. The scenery and the scenes around suggest Lincolnshire Coast.

The Lotos Eaters

30. What type of work is “The Lotos Eaters”?
    Ans: “The Lotos Eaters” is a lyric poem. However, the first forty-five lines contain narration as well as lyricism.
31. What is the setting of the poem “The Lotos Eaters”?
    Ans: The setting is an unidentified land with a surreal, dreamlike atmosphere. In Homer’s Odyssey, this land was probably along the coast of North Africa.
32. What is the source of the poem “The Lotos Eaters”? [NU. 2012, 2015, DU (affi.) 2018]
    Ans: The poem is based on the story in The Odyssey of Homer. 
33. What happened to the men who ate the lotos at the land of the ‘Lotos Eaters’? [NU. 2015]
    Ans: The lotos was a type of drug and it made them feel very happy and they didn’t want ot leave the land of the lotos eaters because thy were trappd.
34. What inspired Lord Alfred Tennyson to write the poem “Lotos Eaters”?
    Ans: Homer’s Odyssey inspired Lord Alfred Tennyson to write the poem “Lotos Eaters”. 
35. On what incident the poem “Lotos Eaters” is based?
    Ans: It is based upon a short incident in the ancient Greek Odyssey by Homer, which tells of the years-long attempt of Odysseus and his sailors to return to their island home of Ithaca.
36. Who are the lotos-eaters? [NU. 2016]
    Ans: The lotos-eaters are people in the Odyssey who lived in a sleepy state from eating the lotos.
37. How does Ulysses infuse courage into his comrades?
    Ans: Ulysses infuses courage into his comrades by pointing out that they are near land, which is visible in the distance. He tells them that the rising wave will soon carry the ship towards that shore.
38. Which is a land of stream?
    Ans: The Lotos-Land is a land of streams. There are a number of – streams in that land.
39. How are the streams in the Lotos-land?
    Ans: Some of the streams fall like drowsy smoke, like slowly- dropping veils made of the thinnest “lawn,” a kind of gauzy, semi- transparent white cloth. Some streams are seen through wavering lights and shadows in the distance, creating a sleep-slow. foam as they flow downward.
40. What is galingale? [NU. 2012]
    Ans: It is a sedge-like plant with aromatic roots.
41. What did the inhabitants of Lotos-land carry to the sailors?
    Ans: The inhabitants of Lotos-Land carry branches of the lotos – “that enchanted stem,” branches loaded with flowers and fruit.
42. What is the lotos?”
    Ans: The lotos is a plant that induces a kind of trance condition, a dream-like state very much like that of an opium addict.
43. What was the effect of the lotos on the voice of the sailors?
    Ans: After tasting the lotos the voice of the sailors became very week and feeble like the voices of ghosts.
44. What seems to be music to the sailors who eat the lotos?
    Ans: The beating of the heart changes into a kind of soft, strange music in ears of the sailors who eat the lotos.
45. Why did the sailors decide not to return home?
    Ans: Under the influence of the lotos the sailors decided not to return home. It seems tiresome to them to be sailing on the restless sea, tiresome to be pulling on the oars of the ship.
46. Who greeted the sailors when they reach the Lotos-land?
    Ans: When the sailors reached the Lotos-land, they were greeted by the “mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters,” whose dark faces appear pale against the rosy sunset.
47. What does the choric song express?
    Ans: The choric song expresses the resolution of the sailors to stay in the land of the Lotos Eaters forever.
48. What did the mariners argue against involving in toil?
    Ans: The mariners question why man is the only creature in nature who must toil. They argue that everything else in nature is able to rest and stay still, but man is tossed from one sorrow to another.
49. What happens to the apple in the summer season?
    Ans: In the summer season, the apple became juicy and grew in its luxuriant majesty on the branches of the trees and then fell down on the earth.
50. What is myrrh-bush?
    Ans: It is the source of myrrh, an aromatic, resin (sticky substance) used in incense, perfume, and medicinal preparations.
51. What are the pilot-stars?
    Ans: They are the pole star and other stars that ship captains use to plot their courses.
52. How does the poem “The Lotos Eaters” end?
    Ans: The poem “The Lotos Eaters” ends with the mariners’ vow to spend the rest of their lives relaxing and reclining in the “hollow Lotos land.”
53. What do the mariners compare the life of abandon to?
    Ans: They compare the life of abandon, which they will enjoy in Lotos land, to the carefree existence of the gods, who could not care less about the famines, plagues, earthquakes, and other natural disasters that plague human beings on earth.
54. How are gods represented in “The Lotos Eaters”?
    Ans: In “The Lotos Eaters” gods are represented as indifferent, even cruel to mankind.
55. Who sang the choric song in “The Lotos Eaters”? [NU. 2013, 2018]
    Ans: The Choric song was sung by all the sailors who had tasted the lotos fruit and flowers.
56. How was the river flowing in the land of Loto’s Eaters?
    Ans: In the land of Lotos Eaters the river was flowing outward to the sea from the interior of the island. [NU. 2019]

Oenone

57. Who was Oenone? [NU. 2016, 2019]
    Ans: Oenone was Paris’ first wife in Greek myths, and she was a mountain nymph.
58. What is Ida?
    Ans: Ida refers to mountains on the west coast of Asia Minor on the Aegean Sea.
59. What is Gargarus?
    Ans: Gargarus is the highest peak in the Ida Mountains.
60. Who did Oenone love? Or who was Oenone’s playmate?
    Ans: Paris, son of the king Priam, was loved by Oenone and was her playmate.
61. What is Homeric epithet?
    Ans: Homeric epithet is usually a compound of two words consisting of one or more adjectives. This words fall into the formula Homer used in such words as fleet-footed. Achilles’, ‘bolt-hurling Zeus’, ‘the wine dark sea’ etc.
62. What fruit did Paris disclose to Oenone?
    Ans: Paris disclosed to Oenone the golden apple of the Hesperides, number of nymphs who guarded the golden apples.
63. What was engraved on the golden apple?
    Ans: On the golden apple the phrase ‘For the most fair was engraved.
64. What do you mean by Hesperian gold?
    Ans: Hesperian Gold refers to the fruit that was in colour like the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides. The Hesperides were three (or four) nymphs, the daughters of Hesperus.
65. Who is Peleus?
    Ans: Peleus in Greek Myth is the king of the Myrmidons of Thessaly who married Thetis, a sea nymph, and parented Achilles.
66. Who is Pallas?
    Ans: Pallas is the epithet given to the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, civilization, law and justice, mathematics, strength, war strategy, the arts, crafts, and skill in ancient Greek religion and mythology.
67. What did Aphrodite promise Paris?
    Ans: Aphrodite promised Paris-the fairest and most loving wife in Greece.
68. Who is Cassandra?
    Ans: Cassandra is the daughter of King Priam, and therefore the sister of Paris. She had the gift of prophecy.
69. What is meant by ‘shepherd’s holiday”? [NU. 2018]
    Ans:A “shepherd’s holiday” refers to a time when Arnold was not very productive from 1857 to 1866.
70. What type of poem is ‘Oenone’? [NU. 2020]
    Ans: The poem “Oenone” is considered the simplest of Tennyson’s dramatic monologues. Here a single speaker speaks and reveals her identity.

Tithonus

71. Who is Tithonus?
    Ans: Tithonus is the lover of Eos or Aurora, the goddess of dawn. A mortal man endowed with the gift of immortality withers as he is without the gift of immortal youth.
72. What type or kind of poem ‘Tithonus’ is? Or, What form of poem has Tennyson used in “Tithonus’?
    Ans: The poem Tithonus’ is a dramatic monologue in seven paragraph-like sections of varying length. Here a single speaker speaks and reveals his identity.”
73. Who is the speaker in the poem ‘Tithonus’?
    Ans: The speaker of the poem “Tithonus’ is Tithonus who speaks to his beloved Eos or Aurora, the goddess of dawn.
74. Who is the probable audience or listener of Tithonus?
    Ans: The poem is spoken by Tithonus to a silent listener who is revealed as the goddess of dawn, Eos or Aurora.
75. What does swan symbolize?
    Ans: Usually swan symbolizes purity but in Tithonus’ it symbolizes impending death and natural cycle of life. The colour white is associated with old age..
76. How was Tithonus as described by him in his youth?
    Ans: Tithonus was very handsome and beautiful like a god in his youth.
77. To whom did Tithonus ask for immortality?
    Ans: Tithonus asked for immortality to Aurora, the goddess of dawn.
78. Who are Hours?
    Ans: In Greek Myth, Hours are three sisters, daughter of Zeus and Themis, who accompany Aurora. They were angered at the gift of immortality to Tithonus.
79. What does the Silver Star do?
    Ans: Silver Star or morning star, which heralds the coming of dawn, works as a guide for the goddess Aurora.
80. What is Tithonas afraid of?
    Ans: Tithonus is afraid of the fact that Aurora does not have the power to take away the gift of immortality.
81. What is Ilion?
    Ans: Ilion refers to the city of Troy where Tithonus was born as a son of Laomedon, King of Troy.
82. What does Tithonus urge Aurora?
    Ans: Tithonus urges Aurora to let him return to earth, where like other happy men, he would also die and be buried in his grave.
83. What gift does Tithonus urge to take back?
    Ans: Tithonus urges Aurora, his lover, to take back. the gift of immortality.
84. How did Aurora grant immortality to Tithonus? [NU. 2018]
    Ans: Tithonus asked for immortality to Aurora, the goddess of dawn. At his request she brought for him the gift of immortality from Zeus.
85. Who, according to Tithonus. is a happy man? [NU. 2020]
    Ans: According to Tithonus, a man is happy if he has the power to die..
86. How did Tithonus become immortal? [NU. 2016]
    Ans: In the poem, Tithonus asks Aurora for the gift of immortality, and at his request she brought him the gift of immortality from Zeus.

Robert Browning

Andrea del Sarto

1. What is the type of the poem “Andrea del Sarto”? [NU. 2017]
   Ans: “Andrea del Sarto” is a dramatic monologue.
2. Who was Andrea del Sarto? [NU. 2014]
   Ans: Andrea del Sarto was a great painter of the Florentine School.
3. What inspired Browning to write the poem “Andrea del Sarto”?
   Ans: Browning was inspired to write the poem by a picture of Andrea and his wife, Lucrezia, hung in the art-gallery of Pitti Palace, Florence.
4. Who is the speaker of the poem “Andrea del Sarto”?
   Ans: The speaker of the poem “Andrea del Sarto” is Andrea, not Robert Browning. Andrea, conversing with his silent wife, Lucrezia, reflects on his life and art, thereby dramatically revealing his moral and aesthetic failure.
5. How does the poem “Andrea del Sarto” begin?
   Ans: The poem “Andrea del Sarto” begins with Andrea’s request to Lucrezia to sit with him and not “quarrel any more.”
6. Who is the listener in “Andrea del Sarto”?
   Ans: Andrea’s wife is the listener. He is trying to persuade her to stay with him and not to leave, by telling her that he would paint many paintings, in order to give her the money she wants, so that she could buy whatever she wants.
7. Who was Lucrezia? Or, Who was Andrea’s wife? [NU. 2016]
   Ans: Lucrezia was the wife of Andrea. Andrea often used Lucrezia as the model for the Madonna. The poem “Andrea del Sarto” takes place as she is posing.
8. Who did Lucrezia marry?
   Ans: Lucrezia first married Recanati, the hatter/hat maker. After the death of her first husband, she married Andrea in 1512. She even married third time after the death of Andrea in 1531.
9. How does the poem “Andrea del Sarto” end?
   Ans: The poem ends with Lucrezia’s lover waiting for her, and del Sarto, forlorn and despairing, telling her to go to him.
10. What does Andrea request Lucrezia at the beginning of the poem?
    Ans: Andrea requests his wife, Lucrezia, at the beginning of the poem not to quarrel with him at least for one evening and to sit by him.
11. Who hopes to get money from Lucrezia? Why? Or, Why did Lucrezia’s lover hope to get money from Lucrezia? [NU. 2012].
    Ans: Her lover is under gambling debts. So, he hopes to get money from Lucrezia to clear the debts.
12. What is Fiesole?
    Ans: Fiesole is a town near Florence, the centre of the Renaissance. 
13. How does Andrea describe Lucrezia’s beauty?
    Ans: According to Andrea, Lucrezia possesses a beauty which fascinates and ensnares like a serpent [My serpentining beauty].
14. What does the phrase “serpentining beauty” suggest?
    Ans: The phrase suggests the graceful curves of Lucrezia’s body as well as her sinister influence on her husband.
15. How is Lucrezia comparable to the moon?
    Ans: Like the moon, Lucrezia’s beauty is visible to all. As the moon does not belong to a single person, she belongs to no one – not even, to her husband only. Besides her husband she has lovers. 
16. What is necessary for great art?
    Ans: Inspiration is necessary for great art.
17. Who/what is responsible for Andrea’s plight?
    Ans: His wife, Lucrezia, is responsible for Andrea’s plight.
18. What is Madonna?
    Ans: Madonna is a picture of Virgin Mary.
19. Who is Legate?
    Ans: Legate is a highly placed church official who represents the Pope.
20. What is the effect of praise or blame on Andrea?
    Ans: Andrea was unmoved by the praise or blame of others.
21. What is Morello?
    Ans: Morello is a mountain near Florence.
22. Why was Raphael called the Urbinate?
    Ans: As Raphael was born at the town of Urbino, he was called the Urbinate.
23. Who was George Vasari?
    Ans: He was the disciple of Andrea. He was a painter and author of Lives of the Artists.
24. Who was Agnolo?
    Ans: He was Michelangelo (1475-1564), the most vigorous and forceful of the great painters of Renaissance Italy. He was a sculptor, a painter, a poet, and architect, a scholar and an engineer.
25. Why was Andrea invited to France?
    Ans: Andrea was invited by the King of France to paint for the decoration of his palace, Fontainebleau..
26. Who invited Andrea to France?
    Ans: Andrea was invited by the King of France, Francis I, to France.
27. Why did Andrea embezzle the money of the King of France?
    Ans: Andrea embezzled the money of the King of France to please his wife, Lucrezia, by building a house for her with the money. 
28. Why is Andrea compared himself to a bat?
    Ans: A bat cannot stand the light of the sun and it is happier within the four walls of a dark room. Similarly, Andrea could not bear the glory and splendour of life at the French court. His wife called him and he returned to her leaving his glorious life in France.
29. Why did Lucrezia need thirteen scudi?
    Ans: Lucrezia needed thirteen scudi to buy a frill for her dress.
30. What does Andrea expect in the next world?
    Ans: Andrea thinks that in the next world he will be asked by God to paint one of the four great walls of the New Jerusalem.
31. Who is Leonard?
    Ans: He is Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519), a painter, sculptor and architect.
32. Where do Andrea and Lucrezia live? [NU. 2017]
    Ans: They live in Florence.
33. What type of poem is “Andrea del Sarto”?
    Ans: “Andrea del Sarto” is a dramatic monologue.
34. How is Andrea inferior to other painters? [NU. 2018]
    Ans: Andrea is inferior to other painters because they have divine visions while Andrea himself lacks such visions.
35. What does the phrase “Andrea del Sarto” mean? [NU. 2020]
    Ans: The phrase means ‘Andrea, the son of a tailor’.
36. Who was called the faultless painter? [NU. 2016, 2019; DU (affi.) 2018]
    Ans: Andrea is called ‘the faultless painter’ beacause no line of his drawing ever goes astray and his hand expressed adequately and accurately all that his mind conceives.

Fra Lippo Lippi

37. What inspired Browning to write the poem “Fra Lippo Lippi”?
    Ans: Browning was perhaps inspired to write the poem on seeing one of Lippo’s paintings called the Coronation of the Virgin at the Academia delle Belle Arti in Florence. He got the outline of Lippo’s” life and many hints for this poem from Vasari’s Lives of the Artists, a compendium of Renaissance painters.
38. What does ‘Fra’ mean?
    Ans: ‘Fra’ means friar or a monk.
39. Who was Fra Lippo Lippi?
    Ans: Fra Lippo Lippi was a Florentine painter who broke away from the moral and religious tradition in painting and ushered in a more realistic artistic manner.
40. Who is the speaker of the poem “Fra Lippo Lippi”?
    Ans: Fra Lippo Lippi is the speaker of the poem.
41. Who is the listener of the poem “Fra Lippo Lippi”?
    Ans: The group of watchmen who arrest Fra Lippo are the listeners of the poem.
42. Who caught Lippo at night? [NU. 2012]
    Ans: Fra Lippo Lippi is caught by the watchmen at night.
43. Who was Cosimo of the Medici?
    Ans: Cosimo of the Medici (1389-1464) was a Florentine politician and patron of the arts, who supported Lippo.
44. Who was Judas?
    Ans: Judas was one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. He betrayed Christ to his enemies for a handful of silver.
45. Who was John the Baptist?
    Ans: John the Baptist was a New Testament prophet who baptized Jesus: The “Beheading of the Baptist” and “Banquet of Herod” are two works by Lippo on the theme of John the Baptist’s end at Herod’s hands.
46. Who holds John the Baptist’s head?
    Ans: It is said that the slave of King Herod is often indicated as holding the head of the executed John, the Baptist, with blood dripping out of his head.
47. What is carnival?
    Ans: Carnival means any season of revelry or merry-making. In Italy it was the fashion to go round in gay bands, singing joyous songs. It was called the carnival season prior to the austerity of Lent. 
48. What is stornelli?
    Ans: Stornelli is a form of Italian folk-song, usually improvised and either sentimental or satirical.
49. What is Saint Laurence?
    Ans: Saint Laurence was a church in Florence. Lippi painted an Annunciation scene there.
50. Who was Jerome?
    Ans: Saint Jerome (ca.340-420) was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was noted for an ascetic life and writings.
51. How was St. Jerome represented in Lippo’s picture?
    Ans: Saint Jerome was represented in Lippo’s picture as beating himself with a stone and thus inflicting pain on the flesh in order to be free from temptations.
52. When did Lippo’s parents die?
    Ans: Lippo’s mother died when he was a baby and his father died two years later.
53. Who was Aunt Lapaccia?
    Ans: Aunt Lapaccia was Lippo’s aunt, who cared for him after his father had died.
54. Where did Aunt Lapaccia take Lippo?
    Ans: Aunt Lapaccia took Lippo to a convent where he was admitted in order to be brought up as a monk.
55. How old was Lippo when his aunt took him to a convent?
    Ans: When his aunt took him to a convent, Lippo was only eight years old:
56. What is the antiphonary’s marge?
    Ans: Antiphonary’s marge is the margin of an antiphon, the service- book of the Catholic Church composed by Gregory, the Great.
57. What is Carmelites?
    Ans: Carmelites is an order of mendicant friars, founded at Mount Carmel in the 12th century; also called White Friars.
58. What is Camaldolese?
    Ans: Camaldolese is the member of the religious order founded by St. Romuald in the 11th Century also called Camaldolites.
59. Why did the image of Christ look sad on the cross?
    Ans: The image of Christ look sad on the cross because of the fact that after more than a thousand years of Christianity men should be still hardened enough to commit murders.
60. What was the function of an artist, according to Lippo?
    Ans: According to Lippo, an artist should give equal attention to both the body and the soul.
61. Who was Herodias?
    Ans: Herodias was the second wife of Herod. Her daughter Salome by her first husband dances before Herod, who afterwards grants her whatever she will wish. At the suggestion of Herodias, Salome asks for John the Baptist’s head.
62. How has religion taught Lippo the lesson of sensuous pleasures? Or, What lesson has Lippo learnt from the Bible?
    Ans: Lippo has learned from the Bible that God had placed Adam in the Garden of Eden and given him Eve for sexual pleasure.
63. Who is Job?
    Ans: Job is a Biblical figure. He had to go through many trials and tribulations which he suffered with such patience that he is called a man of patience.
64. How does the poem “Fra Lippo Lippi” end?
    Ans: The poem ends with Fra Lippo Lippi going back to the monarchy. He has wormed his way out of things by bribing them. It ends with the guards and Fra Lippo Lippi all being friends. He has charmed the night watchmen.
65. How old was Fra Lippo Lippi when he renounced the worldly pleasures? [NU. 2017]
    Ans: He was eight years old when he renounced the worldly pleasure.
66. Why was Lippo arrested by a group of watchmen? [NU. 2020]
    Ans: Lippo was arrested by a group of watchmen as he was wandering at mid of night in a lane of ill-repute frequented by prostitutes.
67. Who are compared to rats in ‘Fra Lippo Lippi’? [NU. 2014, 2019; DU (affi.) 2016, 2018]
    Ans: In “Fra Lippo Lippi,” the monks who seek pleasure and visit prostitutes are compared to rats.

The Last Ride Together

68. What type of a poem is “The Last Ride Together”?
    Ans: It is a dramatic monologue.
69. What does the title of the poem “The Last Ride Together” suggest?
    Ans: The title of the poem suggests the last ride that the lover has spent with his love.
70. How does the poem “The Last Ride Together” begin?
    Ans: “The Last Ride Together” begins with a lover getting finally rejected by his lady-love after he waited for her for a long time.
71. Why is the lover grateful to his lady-love?
    Ans: He is grateful towards her for the beautiful and blissful moments they had together.
72. For what two wishes does the lover request the lady?
    Ans: He requests her for two wishes. First, he should be allowed to cherish the memories of his love and the memories of the happiness during the courting period. Secondly, he wants to go on a last ride with her.”
73. What is a matter of life and death for the lover?
    Ans: Her indecision to have a last ride with him is a matter of life and death for the lover.
74. How is the lover raised to the level of a god?
    Ans: When his lady-love rests her head upon his breast, he feels that he is in contact with heaven. At that moment he enjoys the heavenly bliss and thus he is raised to the level of a god.
75. How does the lover feel when his ladylove rest her head upon his breast?
    Ans: When his ladylove rests her head upon his breast, he feels that he is in contact with heaven.
76. Why does the lover feel “joy and fear”?
    Ans: The lover feels joy because his ladylove has leaned against him; he also feels fear at the same time because he knows that she will leave him any time and that moment of bliss will end forever.
77. To what is the lover’s soul compared?
    Ans: The lover compares his soul to that of a crumpled and rolled up sheet of paper.
78. How does the lover rationalize his failure?
    Ans: When the lover is riding with his beloved for the last time, he remembers the past and rationalizes his failure by saying that he is not the sole person in the world, who has failed.
79. How does the lover console himself?
    Ans: The lover knows that all men try hard for success, but a few succeed. He finds satisfaction in the fact that he has succeeded in realizing the favour of riding with his beloved for the last time.
80. What is a statesman?
    Ans: A statesman is a skilled, ‘experienced, and respected political leader or figure.
81. Why does the lover compare his lot with that of a poet?
    Ans: The lover compares his lot with that of a poet to show that life is greater than art.
82. What is the lot of a poet, according to the lover?
    Ans: According to the poet, a poet lives in poverty and becomes sick and prematurely old because of hard work and financial worries.
83. What is the limitation of a poet?
    Ans: He can describe beauty in his poetry but he cannot enjoy the sublime ideal of beauty.
84. How is a lover fated better than a poet?
    Ans: A lover is fated better than a poet because a lover can enjoy pleasure of his beloved’s company; while a poet can only describe, he is unable to enjoy it.”
85. Who is Venus?
    Ans: Venus is the Greek goddess of love and beauty.
86. What does the lover hope to get in the other world?
    Ans: As he has failed in his love in this world, he hopes to be united with his beloved in the other world.
87. How does the lover want to transform the present ride into an everlasting one?
    Ans: He wishes to transform the present ride into an everlasting one by just continuing it from this world to heaven.
88. What was the last thought that was not in vain for the lover in “The Last Ride Together”?
    Ans: The rejected lover even in this unrequited love story pleads for last ride together with the beloved, which is not rejected. Rather his last hope survives as a sigh of relief and finds himself deified one more day in his life.
89. Who is the speaker in the poem “The Last Ride Together”? Ans: The speaker of the poem is a rejected lover exploring the end of a love affair. [NU. 2016, 2020; DU (affi.) 2016]

My Last Duchess

90. What is the original title of the poem “My Last Duchess”?
    Ans: The original title of the poem is “Italy”.
91. What is the scene of “My Last Duchess”?
    Ans: Ferrara, a city in northern Italy
92. Who is Fra Pandolf?
    Ans: Fra Pandolf was a monk/artist, who painted the portrait of the last Duchess.
93. How is the Duchess’s blush described?
    Ans: The Duchess’ blush is described as a spot of joy.
94. How was the heart of the Duchess?
    Ans: Her heart could be easily glad and easily impressed.
95. Who gave the Duchess a bough of cherries?
    Ans: Some officious fool gave the Duchess a bough of cherries.
96. What angered the Duke?
    Ans: The Duchess smiled freely at others. It angered the Duke.
97. What “crime” did the Duke’s last duchess commit?
    Ans: She presented everyone with the same smile without making any distinction between the Duke and the others.
98. Why did the Duke dislike the Duchess?
    Ans: Her nature displeased the Duke, perhaps out of jealousy, and he did not seem to trust her. The Duke does not feel the Duchess appreciated his family name.
99. What does the Duke hope to receive for marrying the Count’s daughter?
    Ans: The Duke hopes to receive a dowry for marrying the Count’s daughter.
100. Who is Claus of Innsbruck?
     Ans: He is an imaginary sculptor.
101. What does the Duchess’s painting symbolize?
     Ans: The Duchess’s painting symbolizes that the Duke is unable to destroy her.
102. What kind of man is the Duke?
     Ans: The Duke is an emotionally cold, calculating, materialistic, haughty, aristocratic connoisseur; on the positive side, he is a patron of such artists as Fra Pandolf and Claus of Innsbruck (both fictional).
103. What does the statue of Neptune taming a sea-horse symbolize?
     Ans: The statue of Neptune taming a seahorse symbolizes brutal male domination of the beautiful and natural.
104. What kind of poem is “My Last Duchess”?
     Ans: It is a dramatic monologue.
105. What is the theme of “My Last Duchess”?
     Ans: The theme of “My Last Duchess” is the conflict between the self-styled elite culture of the upper class and the petty behaviour of an individual during the Renaissance period in Italy.
106. Who is Neptune? [NU. 2017]
     Ans: Neptune is the Roman God of the sea.
107. Who is the speaker of the poem “My Last Duchess”? [NU. 2017; DU (affi.) 2016].
     Ans: The Duke of Ferrara is the speaker of the poem “My Last Duchess”.
108. Who is the listener in “My Last Duchess”? [NU. 2018; DU (affi.) 2017]
     Ans: The listener is an emissary of the Duke’s prospective second wife.
109. What is Westminster Abbey? [NU. 2019]
     Ans: Westminster Abbey is a Gothic monastery church in London that is the traditional place of coronation and burial for many great men.
110. How does the Duke treat his wife? [NU. 2020]
     Ans: The Duke treats his wife as his personal property.

Mathew Arnold

The Scholar Gipsy

1. What kind of poem is “The Scholar Gipsy’? [NU. 2016]
   Ans: “The Scholar Gipsy” is a pastoral elegy.
2. What is the poem “The Scholar Gipsy” about?
   Ans: “The Scholar Gipsy” is about a certain spiritual crisis, a crisis of faith, experienced by Matthew Arnold and many other sensitive minds of the Victorian period.
3. Who is the scholar gipsy? [NU. 2013]
   Ans: He is the scholar who took to gipsy company and wandered with them in search of truth.
4. How is Arnold’s Scholar?
   Ans: Arnold’s Scholar is very much a solitary, isolated from his fellow human beings including the gypsies even from the start, and he is seen only by rare glimpses pensive and tongue-tied, his gipsy dress only emphasizing his isolation.
5. Who was Joseph Glanvill’?
   Ans: Joseph Glanvill (1636-1680) was a stern moralist of the seventeenth century.
6. What is the subject of the poem “The Scholar Gipsy”?
   Ans: The materialistic Victorian age is the subject of the poem “The Scholar Gipsy”.
7. What does Arnold criticize in “The Scholar Gipsy”?
   Ans: Arnold criticizes Victorian life in “The Scholar Gipsy”.
8. How was Victorian life?
   Ans: The Victorian life was the life of sordid materialism, scepticism, doubts, despair and distractions.
9. “Who is “the Oxford scholar poor”?
   Ans: He is the poor scholar gipsy who had talent and creative imagination. He got frustrated being failed to achieve success at Oxford and left his friends and joined the gypsies in order to learn from them the art of hypnotism.
10. What kind of man was the scholar gipsy?
    Ans: He was a man of pregnant parts’ – a man of genius and ability.
11. Where did the shepherds see the Scholar?
    Ans: The shepherds had seen the Scholar on Cumner Hurst in spring.
12. Why did the Scholar leave the alehouse?
    Ans: He Scholar did not like the noisy drinking of the villagers. So, he left the alehouse to slip away the company of the revellers. 
13. What kind of area did the Scholar Gipsy love? [NU. 2013]
    Ans: The Scholar Gipsy loved solitary or isolated area – “I know, thou lov’st retired ground”.
14. What is Bab-lock-hithe? [NU: 2013; DU. (affi) 2018]
    Ans: Bab-lock-hithe is a ferry on the Thames, a few miles away from Oxford.
15. What is Wychwood?
    Ans: Wychwood is the name of a forest near Oxford.
16. What is Fyfield?
    Ans: Fyfield is a village near Oxford.
17. What is Godstow Bridge?
    Ans: It is a bridge over the Thames about a few miles from Oxford.
18. What is the Bagley Wood?
    Ans: The Bagley Wood is a forest about three miles to the south of Oxford.
19. What is Thessaly?
    Ans: Thessaly is a place in Greece. Arnold gives the name to the forest ground near the Bagley Wood.
20. Where did the poet himself meet the Scholar Gipsy?
    Ans: The poet himself met the Scholar Gipsy on a winter day near the wooden bridge on the South Hinksey.
21. Why, according to Arnold, the Scholar Gipsy cannot die?
    Ans: According to Arnold, the Scholar Gipsy cannot die because he did not fritter away his energies by constant changes of pursuits.
22. Why can’t the Victorians live fully?
    Ans: The Victorians cannot live fully because their energy is frittered away in different types of idle pursuits.
23. How did the Victorians face the problems of life?
    Ans: The Victorians did not face the baffling problems of life with stoical forbearance.
24. Why is the modern life called a strange disease? [NU. 2014]
    Ans: The modern life is called a strange disease because it has brought sordid materialism and maddening skepticism.
25. What is the strange disease of modern life? [DU. (affi) 2018]
    Ans: The strange disease of modern life is feverish excitement and sordid materialism.
26. How was the life of the Victorians?
    Ans: The life of the Victorians was one of doubt and frustration.
27. Why does the poet compare the Scholar Gipsy to Dido? Or, What is the point of similarity between the Scholar Gipsy and Dido?
    Ans: Dido, the queen of Carthage, had run away from her treacherous lover, Aeneas, in the underworld. Similarly, the Scholar Gipsy should run away from the oppressive doubts of the Victorian age.
28. Who was Dido?
    Ans: Dido was the queen of Carthage. She fell in love with Aeneas, a Trojan hero, and burnt herself on a pyre when he had treacherously deserted her.
29. What is Hades?
    Ans: In Greek mythology Hades is the underworld where the souls of the dead dwell.
30. What does the Scholar Gipsy symbolize?
    Ans: The Scholar Gipsy is a symbol of spiritual quest and idealism. He is also a symbol of eternal youth and freshness of spirit.
31. What is meant by “the Ægaan Isles”?
    Ans: They refer to the islands of the Aegean Sea, once the lucrative trading area of the Phoenicians.
32. Why did Arnold introduce the Tyrian trader?
    Ans: Arnold introduces the Tyrian trader to illustrate his advice to the Scholar Gipsy to fly away from the greetings, speech and smiles of the Victorians because they are full of deceptive.
33. What is the source of the poem “The Scholar Gypsy”? [NU. 2017; DU. (affi) 2016]
    Ans: Joseph Glanvill’s book, The Vanity of Dogmatizing.
34. What is “the eternal note of sadness”? [NU. 2013, 2018]
    Ans: To Arnold, the sound made by the sea-waves is ‘the eternal note of sadness’.
35. What is “gipsy lore”? [NU. 2015, 2020; DU. (affi) 2017]
    Ans: The gipsy-lore’ refers to the learning of the gypsies. It is the secret art of the gypsies who are believed to have the power of thought-reading, mesmerism etc..
36. “I know the Fyfield tree”-What is the Fyfield tree? [NU. 2020]
    Ans: It refers to the elm-tree in the village of Fyfield where girls came to welcome the advent of spring by dancing and singing near the elm tree on the first of May..

Dover Beach

37. When did Arnold visit Dover Beach?
    Ans: Arnold visited Dover Beach with his wife Frances Lucy Wightman twice in 1851.
38. What does Arnold lament in “Dover Beach”? [NU. 2012, 2014; DU. (affi) 2018]
    Ans: In “Dover Beach” Arnold laments the loss of religious faith in the Victorian age.
39. What is Arnold’s view of the world as expressed in “Dover Beach”?
    Ans: To Arnold, the world is full of pain, without joy, love and peace.
40. What is Dover famous for? [NU. 2016].
    Ans: Dover is famous for its White Cliffs and historic castle.
41. Where is the France coast?
    Ans: The France coast is on the other side of the English Channel. 
42. What is a cliff?
    Ans: A cliff is a high area of rock with a very steep side, often at the edge of the sea or ocean.
43. How was the religious faith in the past?
    Ans: In the past faith in God was strong and comforting. This faith wrapped itself around human beings, protecting them from doubt and despair, as the sea wraps itself around the continents and islands of the world.
44. What type of work is “Dover Beach”?
    Ans: “Dover Beach” is a poem with the mournful tone of an elegy and the personal intensity of a dramatic monologue.
45. What are the themes of the poem “Dover Beach”?
    Ans: This poem deals with the loss of faith in religion. But it is also about the industrialization and the changes in the cities (the progress) that were occurring in the Victorian age.
46. Where is the Aegean Sea?
    Ans: The Aegean Sea is in between Greece and Anatolia.
47. Who is the speaker of the poem “Dover Beach”? [NU. 2014]
    Ans: The poem is supposedly spoken by someone staying somewhere on Dover Beach.
48. Who is in the poem “Dover Beach” addressed to?
    Ans: The poem is “addressed, or half-addressed, to someone present,” presumably, the speaker’s sweetheart. This fact is proved by the three imperative sentences beginning with “Come,” “Listen,” and “let” uttered by the speaker in lines 6, 9, & 29.
49. Who was Sophocles? [NU. 2017]
    Ans: Sophocles was one of the most celebrated Greek tragedians who lived during 495 406 BC. He was a favourite author of Arnold.
50. What is Dover? [NU. 2020]
    Ans: Dover is a port on the English Channel, where the sea is at its narrowest form.
51. What does “The Sea of Faith” symbolize? [NU. 2014]
    Ans: “The Sea of Faith” symbolizes religion.

Thyrsis

52. Why did Arnold write “Thyrsis”?
    Ans: Arnold wrote “Thyrsis” to commemorate his friend Arthur Hugh Clough who died in 1861.
53. What is the central idea of the poem “Thyrsis”?
    Ans: The central idea of the poem is the contrast between the man-made things and the objects of Nature.
54. Who was Sibylla?
    Ans: Sibylla Curr was the name of the proprietress of the inn.
55. Who is Thyrsis in Arnold’s poem of the same name? Or, Who is Thyrsis?
    Ans: Thyrsis is the name of a shepherd in Theocritus. But in Arnold’s poem Thyrsis is the pastoral name standing for Arnold’s friend, Arthur Hugh Clough.
56. What was the effect of the Oxford Movement on Clough?
    Ans: The Oxford Movement cast a shadow of doubts and uncertainties in religious matter which filled Clough’s mind with despair and unhappiness.
57. Who is Clough compared to in “Thyrsis”?
    Ans: In “Thyrsis” Arnold compares Clough to the cuckoo.
58. Who was Corydon?
    Ans: Corydon is the name of an imaginary shepherd who defeated another shepherd named Thyrsis in the contest of playing on the pipe stated in the Seventh Eclogue of Virgil.
59. Who was Bion?
    Ans: Bion was a pastoral poet of Sicily. He was poisoned to death in 300 BC.
60. Who was Pluto?
    Ans: Pluto was the god of Hades or the underworld. He abducted Proserpine, the goddess of the Earth and made her the queen of the underworld.
61. Who was Proserpine?
    Ans: Proserpine was the daughter of Jupiter and Ceres. She was abducted by Pluto, the god of the underworld and became the queen of the underworld.
62. Who was Orpheus?
    Ans: Orpheus was the mythical musician of the ancient Greece. He was able to enter the kingdom of the dead and almost succeeded in bringing back his wife who died of snakebite, by means of his power of music.
63. What is Enna?
    Ans: Enna is a place in Sicily from where Proserpine was abducted by Pluto, while she was gathering flowers.
64. What is the Arno?
    Ans: The Arno is one of the largest rivers of Italy.
65. Who was Daphnis?
    Ans: Daphnis was the ideal Sicilian shepherd of Greek pastoral poetry.
66. What is Arnold’s view about Truth? [NU. 2013]
    Ans: To Arnold, Truth is not a marketable commodity. It cannot be purchased in exchange for possessions like gold, houses, property, status or a member of worldly, flattering friends.
67. “My pipe is lost”- What is meant by “pipe”? [NU. 2015]
    Ans: Here poetic inspiration is meant by pipe.
68. Who does Corydon stand for in Arnold’s “Thyrisis”? [NU. 2015; DU. (affi) 2017]
    Ans: In “Thyrsis”, Corydon stands for Arnold himself.
69. What is a monody?
    Ans: A monody is a sad song or poem in which a single person laments another’s death.
70. What was the cause of the spiritual crisis in the poem ‘The Scholar Gipsy’? [NU. 2019]
    Ans: One of the major causes of the crisis was the retreat of traditional religious faith and belief, resulting in a dizzy feeling of uncertainty and fluctuation regarding the meaning and significance of life, a stifling sense of living in a spiritual vacuum, of loneliness and nostalgia.
71. Why is Clough compared to the cuckoo?
    Ans: In “Thyrsis”, Arnold compares Clough to the cuckoo. The point of similarity between them is that just as the cuckoo leaves England when the storms begin to blow; Clough left the world when the religious storm was raging in fury at Oxford.
72. “And we are here as on a darkling plain”-What is referred to here?
    Ans: A darkling plain means a field enveloped in darkness. The reference is to the Greek historian Thucydides and his account of a disastrous night battle in Sicily.

G. M. Hopkins

The Windhover

1. Which bird is called the windhover? [NU. 2016]
   Ans: The windhover is another name for the kestrel, a small falcon.
2. What is the meaning of “caught” in line 1?
   Ans: In this poem “caught” means to behold or to witness.
3. What is addressed by “Morning’s minion”?
   Ans: The falcon is addresses by “Morning’s minion”.
4. The falcon is the crown prince of what?
   Ans: The falcon is the crown prince of the kingdom of daylight.
5. When do you think the poet witnessed the falcon?
   Ans: Early in the morning the poet witnessed the falcon.
6. How does the air behave when the falcon starts to fly?
   Ans: As the falcon rides the air, the air becomes steady and rolls level underneath him.
7. It is what by which the poet is so fascinated seeing the flight?
   Ans: The way the falcon rides the air and the way it moves rapidly or forcefully fascinates the poet.
8. Why the poet’s heart is hiding?
   Ans: As poet’ knows that he is a sinner, thinking about the creation of God makes his heart scared.
9. Who, do you think, this poem is dedicated to?
   Ans: The poem is dedicated to Christ.
10. What do you understand by “Brute beauty”? [NU. 2014, 2017, 2019]
    Ans: Here, “Brute beauty” means natural, untouched beauty.
11. What is the meaning of ‘Felix’?
    Ans: In Latin, ‘Felix’ means ‘happy’.
12. With what the fallen leaves are compared?
    Ans: The Biblical assertion in Isiah suggests that “leaves like the things of man”.

Felix Randal

13. How is his physique portrayed by the poet?
    Ans: His physique is portrayed as well-built, hardy, handsome and big-boned.
14. How did Felix gradually walk towards death?
    Ans: Felix’s body became the habitat of four deadly diseases. 
15. How did he receive the last sacrament of extreme unction?
    Ans: The last sacrament of extreme unction happened by the anointing of the eyes, ears, mouth etc. with holy oil.
16. How did the priest pray on behalf of Randal? [NU. 2013; DU. (affi) 2018]
    Ans: The priest prayed “Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended!”
17. Who was Felix Randal? [NU. 2018; DU. (affi) 2016].
    Ans: Felix Randal was a farrier.
18. What did Felix Randal use to make? [NU. 2012, 2020]
    Ans: He used to make horseshoes.
19. What is the meaning of ‘Felix’? [NU. 2017]
    Ans: In Latin, ‘Felix’ means ‘happy’.
20. What kind of joy did Hopkins feel when he prayed for the blacksmith? – [NU. 2012]
    Ans: Hopkins thinks that after death the blacksmith’s soul reunites with God. This makes Hopkins feel a kind of joy.

Spring and Fall: to a young child

21. Who was Margaret? [NU. 2015]
    Ans: The name Margaret refers to any child.
22. What is the meaning of Goldengrove?
    Ans: It is golden trees in a grove.
23. What is the meaning of “Fall” used in the title?
    Ans: The word “Fall” suggests the season Autumn when the leaves fall as well as the Fall of Adam from heaven for eating the forbidden fruit.
24. What does the poet advice the child?
    Ans: The poet advices the child not to be so sensitive as the grief of losing loved ones/things will be more frequent as the heart grows matured.
25. What is the hard truth that heart knows from the beginning of life?
    Ans: The mouth and mind may not express clearly but the heart knows that decay and death are inevitable.
26. What does ‘Spring’ suggest in the title? [NU. 2018]
    Ans: “Spring” in the title suggests both the season of growth and the Garden of Eden.
27. Why is Margaret crying? [NU. 2013, 2020]
    Ans: Margaret is crying seeing the leaves fall during Autumn.
28. What is the source of mankind’s sorrow? [NU. 2014]
    Ans: The source of mankind’s sorrows is the first disobedience and the original sin.

Pied Beauty

29. How would you describe the speaker’s emotional state?
    Ans: The speaker’s mood was a glorified one.
30. What do you think the poet means by saying “all things counter”?
    Ans: Even though things are different than they were years ago, the natural beauty of the world God has given is still just as beautiful.
31. According to the last two lines, why does the poet offer glory and praise to God?
    Ans: It may be assumed that the poet was stating that even though our forefathers have change the world God still make the world beautiful.
32. What contrast does the poet suggest between the beauty of the physical world and the beauty of God, the creator?
    Ans: The poet states that his forefathers can make beauty but they cannot make the beauty God can make…
33. How does the rhythm of the last line make it especially effective?
    Ans: It is effective because through out the whole poem there is no rhyme but at the end we get a rhythm and as it is a natural attraction for humans, the last lines catch attention.
34. How is this poem “praise song”?
    Ans: This poem describes and hails the beauties of every creation of God whether it is the beauty of a beauty or the opposite through each line, turning itself into more of a praise of God rather than an ordinary poem.
35. What is expressed through the words ‘Brute beauty’?
    Ans: Here, “Brute beauty” means natural, untouched beauty. 
36. Why is the poet’s heart scared in the poem “The Windhover”? [NU. 2019]
    Ans: As poet knows that he is a sinner, thinking about the creation of God makes his heart scared.
37. Who wrote the poem ‘Pied Beauty’? [NU. 2016, 2019]
    Ans: Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote the poem “Pied Beauty”. 
38. What is a curtal sonnet? [DU. (affi) 2016]
    Ans: Curtal sonnet is a ten and a half line sonnet devised by Hopkins having an abc abc, dbc de rhyme scheme.