Swan song

The “Swan Song” is a drama given by Anton Chekhov” He describes about the Swan Song of the Vasili Svetlovidov and regration towards the time.
Vasili Svetlovidov is 68 years old stage performer. The drama begins with a stage performance of the Vasili Svetlovidov. As the play begins, he appears out form the dressing room in the performers costume with a candle in his hand, and laughs. He is in a drunken sate and feeling much uncomfortable. The time is already a night and it is quite dark. The show had been finished some hours before when he felt himself to be asleep in the chair. All the audience had gone their home and his partners also gone home. Nobody cares about him after his performance is over. His helper to whom he had paid money also left him without caring him sincerely. From this he split his anger on the helper as well as himself.
The Svetlovidov had passed his 45years of life on the stage performance and entertained peoples, but that day no body cares about him. So he regrets on himself.On the time, with the regregation he enters the dressing room where he met with Nikita who give some sympathy towards him.

Actually, life is full of unexpectation. We all expect that our next move will bring us great fortune but at the end the result may by different. Then another move is made and another result is received. Life goes on and at last in old age when all our energy is fading we want to be with our family or relatives. When such hope is faded then we start remembering our past and burst in agony. That’s what happen with Svetlovidov in this story.

Also, human is social animal. We like to be in family and spent our time with family at old age. Love, care and devotion are very expected thing by every one of us. When we cannot achieve any one of these we may be lost in pain. As here with the Svetlovidov, life without support is disaster full of agony.

Also, I come to understand young love can both destroy and make any one life. As in story Svetlovidov loses hope another woman after rejection from one mentioned in the drama. He changed his mind toward the drama. He misunderstood the meaning of joy and happiness onward and spent his rest of life alone in agony.

GAIA

GAIA
FOUR LEVEL OF INTERACTION

LITERAL COMPREHENSION

Lohani in the poem "Gaia" talks of enduring nature or the mother earth and the consequence of over exploitation of human in the nature.
The term " Gaia " itself stands for the Greek goddess. Gaia is a abstract form of the earth.She is very generous,and tolerant.But she is compelled to endure the human activities today.The gentle wind has changed harsh,the rain has become so unfriendly,the sea changed into the mouth of the demon, every where just hunger and crisis ,scarcity and the destruction. Although the earth endures all of these effect and provides the nature for the existence of many living creature including we human being .


INTERPRETATION
Human interaction in the biomass regulation have caused instability. It has caused fields to wither and wind to be harsh.The beautiful snow capped mountain are dry ,rough,and ugly today.every where drought and scarcity.and only the cause behind this is the human exploitation on nature for their personal desires and wants.No one is protecting her today.She is still strong enough and so generous that life is possible till today.


CRITICAL THINKING

Gaia or the mother earth is very generous , gentle ,feminine and nurturing and is providing a environment for all creatures to live in the earth but we human are over utilizing all the natural resources just for our personnal greed and it has been disturbing the earth very much.All the physical and the natural phenomenon like the wind ,the rain ,the mountains all changed into something different unnatural .scarcity and destruction is all over the earth and still the earth endures all this .Poet has suggested that the enduring capacity of the earth might be limited and it may exceeds it limit in a futures day.The day she stops enduring the human activities she would be ruthlessly cruel.

ASSIMILATION

Earth is only the home for the millions of the living creatures today and we must conserve our home . We all are today over exploiting the nature and she is enduring till today.If she finish her enduring capacity ,we are going to have a big problem tomorrow in our near future.so we should conserve our nature today.

To His coy Mistress

 

To His coy Mistress
Literal Comprehension:-Andrew marvel wrote some of the finest Meta. Physical poetry, in this poem he has expressed his attitude towards love.
The poet is found complaining about the limited time of youth to his beloved. If there had been plenty of time, her shymess would not be a problem. They would sit down together is contemplate about method to best express their love. He imagined that she would be the side of the river Ganges in India, while he would be the side of his river Huber in England. In love distance does not matter as long as their feelings for each other are strong. It is natural for lovers to pine for their love when they are far apart the poet proclaims he would love her 10 yrs before the biblical floods and she may repuse him fill the conversion of the Jews. Still his love her would grow gradually and would be vaster than the vastest empires if time allowed he would appreciate her beautiful minutely by taking 1000 yrs to praise her eyes is other features however, the poet feels this is not possible as no one can escape times winged chariot implying that people grew old to the passage of time. The flitting time would make his beloved beauty vanish is make her grow old and finally she would penish the spring of love which one enjoys during his her youth would not be the same with the advancement of age and even if the grave provided privacy to the lovers to meet it would be impractical and foolish to in-grace his sweet heart in the grave. The poet is seemed imploring begging his lover to make love while they are still young in the prime of their youth a time when everything appears beautiful. He urges her not to languish or waste time but for unit in body is soul to reach the point of expectancy.they cannot stop the sun, but they can at least dip themselves in the pleasures of love.


Interpretation: - the poet may be implying that his shy beloved must love him before it is too late. They must make love in the prime of their youth is the full of vitality.the poet seems to be emphasizing on the importance of time is considers at appropriate time to be the best.This poem is quite obscene of the 17^th century the poet seems to be expressing only the physical aspect of love. Love is celestial involving the feeling of sharing, caring, companionship understanding and not only beauty is youth. Inspite of this poem being classed as pornography it cannot be denied that it is a model of fine metaphysical poetry.

Critical thinking: The poem is an argument in quite strict logical form. Each of the three movements is a step in a syllogism:1. If we had time at our disposal.........2. but we do not ........3. therefore...... Hyperbole's and exaggeration are common among lovers. There is a realistic attitude towerds time. But the poet's attitude towards love is unacceptable. Does love means physical and sexual love only?

Assimilation: - After reading the poem find the misconception of love in the fate front. A misleading idea of love with his hand care hitting out on physical love. Another factor which strikes my mind is the concept of time. The poet seems to emphasize on the adage that time is hide waits for no man.

Piano

D. H. Lawrence’s Piano shows a man experiencing nostalgia as he listens to a woman singing which reminds him of his childhood.
The poem starts with the man hearing the soft singing of a woman which takes him on a mental journey down memory lane and he sees visions of his childhood flashing in front of him. The memory he focuses on is that of a small child who is sitting beneath a grand piano as his mother plays it, taking his mother’s elegant feet into his small hands and listening to the loud chords of music.
The man is reluctant to remember those days and be affected by them, but the song which the woman is singing seems to have a slow subtle impact on him and despite his hesitance he gives in to his emotions and yearns for the days of childhood: the cold Sunday evenings in winter when it used to now outside and they, mother and son used to sit in the warm comfortable indoors and sing melodious hymns with the help of the piano.
The man who was listening to the lady singing now thinks that it would be useless for her to continue on as he is already so affected by his memories that he is just physically present, his mind elsewhere. Without any thought of his adulthood, he bursts into tears remembering the blissful ignorance and innocence of his infant years. He starts weeping, thus bridging the gap between his past and his present


short summary

In this poem, DH Lawrence has depicted the way a person experiences Nostalgia. In this poem, there is a man who is a grown man and he is thinking about all the stages through which he passed at different times in his life. He is remembering his childhood and he is longing for the times that have passed. But along with that feeling of longing also makes him feel a little guilty because he thinks that he is not being sincere and faithful to his present by remembering and longing for the times which have passed. This poem helps the readers in understanding the feelings of nostalgia when a person wants to return to the past and yet wants to remain in the present at the same time.

four levels

literal comprehension:

The speaker in “Piano” by D. H. Lawrence is proud to be a full grown man, yet he loves remembering his happy childhood; his nostalgic attitude causes him to feel guilty as if he had betrayed his present state of being. Through effective imagery, Lawrence is able (to describe an image) to help the reader understand the speaker’s nostalgic attitude. The diction and tone used in this poem reveal the speaker’s struggle as his feelings mix between his desire to be a man and his desire to return to his childhood. The syntax and structure of the poem keep the reader in tune with the flow of the poem. In this poem a man struggles to remain a man while fighting off his memories of the past, which he feels would be uncharacteristic of his present maturity.

The imagery in this poem helps to describe a picture in the reader’s mind so that the reader can sympathize with the speaker during his journeys into the past. In the first stanza, in the first line, the first image is of a woman. In the fourth line the reader learns that this woman is the speaker’s mother. The third line shows an image of a “child sitting under the piano . . . pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles.” This image gives the reader an image, perhaps of a parlor room, of a child about three or four years of age enjoying the music produced by his mother.

Interpretation: Lawrence is so emotionally charged with the memories of his childhood that it becomes negative to the extent that he starts remembering what he doesnt want to remember. Whether it be negative, or hurtful, he produces a dramatic piece that reverberates between past and present.

Critical Thinking: Isn't Lawrence just being typically early 20th century macho in feeling he ought to resist sensations that open up his emotions and his childhood love of his mother?


Assimilation: It really a fantastic peom every thing let us to feel good about our childhood and it really influnce my feeling and let me to cry like the poet becauce i really miss my childhood.

Ethics

 

The poem is about Pastan's teacher asking her class an ethical question, "if there were a fire in a museum/which would you save, a Rembrandt painting/or an old woman who hadn't many/ years left anyhow?. Pastan showed that at a young age children don't fully understand what ethics means, they would just do what felt morally right. Pastan showed how she felt as a child by saying, "Sometimes/the woman borrowed my grandmother's face/leaving her usual kitchen to wander/some drafty, half-imagined museum.. Pastan used a metaphor to relate what she had to choose between with the ethical question.
One year Pastan decided to answer her teachers question with, "why not let the woman decide for herself?. Her teacher responded to her question that she, "eschews/the burdens of responsibility.. Her teacher is pointing out the fact that she is running away from her responsibility of choosing between the painting and the old woman. Ethics is not about which choice you make, but about why you would make that choice.
Pastan learns and understands the meaning of ethics when she is older and more mature. She is standing in front of a real Rembrandt painting and noticing its beauty, "The colors/within this frame are darker than autumn/darker even than winter-the browns of earth, /though earth's most radiant elements burn/ through the canvas. Pastan used imagery to show the audience what she saw in the Rembrandt, what a child would not be able to see. Pastan realized that a beautiful painting, and an old women were, "all beyond saving by children. Pastan understands that a child would choose to save an old woman rather than a painting because the child feels that it is, morally, the right thing to do.
Throughout Pasten's entire poem we learn how a person must grow and mature to understand what ethics is. In the beginning of the poem Pastan is a young girl who doesn't fully understand what ethics is. At the end, we learn that Pasten understands completely what ethics is. She used poetic techniques to aid the theme in relaying it to the audience. The audience can relate to Pastan comparing the painting with her grandmother because everyone knows of, or has had a grandmother. When Pastan describes in detail the painting the audience can relate to it because everyone has seen something in their life that they would describe in the same in-depth way that she did. By using poetic techniques to support her theme, Pastan showed the theme is understanding why you would make a choice.

Where The mind is without fear

 

Where The Mind Is Without Fear
Rabindranath Tagore

Literal Comprehension:
The poem "Where the Mind Is without Fear" is a pleading poem in which the speaker is requesting the god almighty to guide his people and his country to the world of eternity where everything is free to everyone. The speaker wishes every freedom to his people and to the whole humanity. He wants to take his people to such land where people don't need to have any fear, where education to every people is free, where people live happily together without being divided in to groups, where the people always head to the perfection. To get such Promised Land, the speaker pleads the god.

Interpretation:
The poem is a patriotic poem considering the freedom and eternal happiness of life of the people as the most important factor. If people are deprived of such basic requirements, then there remains no place to feel the life. As a result, the society is full of social unjust and discrimination. Thus the poem asserts the fact that society must be free from all such social evils. For this, the speaker requests the god to create a very ideal and heavenly society.

Critical Thinking:
The poem with a nationalistic feeling is successful to impress the reader. So far his point in the poem is concerned; we may not easily accept him. The country naturally consists of people of various castes and creeds, and in such situation, there arises various thoughts and ideas. So it is useless to talk about one nation. Similarly the poet seems too much spiritual and to be believing on the mercy of god. It, in no way, is acceptable in case of ruling the country as well as imposing the rule over the people. On the other hand, he pleads the divine power but up to now no man is blessed by him.

Assimilation:
As I read the poem, it has brought me back to the condition of Nepalese people under the rule of Ranas. During this period, Nepalese people couldn't get chance to read and write. Education had been too precious and expensive to them. People were too much suppressed by the rule that they were under the great fear of the Rana rule. They could do nothing except pleading the god for their freedom from such rule. 




summary



The poem is written by Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher and Nobel laureate born in Calcutta. This poem is written in the era when India was under the British Rule and people were just waiting to get liberated from the British rule. The poem gave a lot of strength to people who were fighting for India's Independence.
The poet wishes to be awakened to a heaven where the mind can work fearlessly and the spirit can hold its head high, where one can acquire knowledge in all freedom of choice, where the big world of man is not fragmented or restricted to small mutually exclusive compartments, where everybody speaks his/her heart clear, where actions flow in the form of various streams moving from success to success, where petty conventions do not stagnate the course of judgement, where manhood is not pieced, where God himself leads us in all acts, all thoughts, and all sources of delight. We need a strong motivating slap by God to be elevated to that heaven.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

 Stopping by woods on a snowy evening
Robert Frost


Literal Comprehension:

The speaker in the poem is riding his horse through the woods. It is getting evening and the environment is cold. It is snowing. The wood is extremely beautiful to look at but the speaker can't stay there to enjoy its beauty since he has to go on a long journey before he sleeps.

Interpretation:
The poem is about human life and duty. Human life is full of obstacles and hardships. But one must be patient and courageous to overcome this to fulfill the promise of his/her life. If one fails to understand such aspect of life, he/she can never get success in his/her life. The poem can be interpreted symbolically by addressing such aspect which always tried to divert the human from their way of life. But man being conscious of it should continue his pace of life forgetting everything.

Critical Thinking:
So far the poem talks about the human life and duty, it is very impressive. But in many respects, the speaker fails to give very convincing incidence such as how does the writer feel stopping at the lonely woods? Here the horse is shown as if it were giving information about the harshness of the climate. Is it possible for the horse to notice and inform about it? How does one travel along the path alone which is full of falling snow ?

Assimilation:
As I read the poem, it impressed me much. I am a man of common interest and hobby. Even the small and insignificant event traps me. Because of this, I forget other many important things. As a result I never get success in my mission. After reading this, I came to know the fact that one should continue his/her mission whatever the difficulties he/she faces.


summary

 
Once a poet riding on a horse passes through the forest, where the snow was gently falling and covering it. He stops to enjoy natural beauty of the forest. The poet says that he knows forest’s owner who lives in a village. He could not see him stopping there. His horse would think it strange to stop by woods because there was no farm house between forest and lake. It was considered darkest evening of the year. The sound which he could hear was of the blowing winds and falling flakes of snow. The horse moved the bells of harness in order to confirm whether his master has made any mistake. The scene of forest was very charming but poet remembered his promise which he has to fulfill. He has yet to travel a long distance before he may go to bed.