हिंदी

Notice the Use of the Word ‘Turn’ in the First Line, “I Think I Could Turn and Live with Animals…”. What is the Poet Turning From?

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प्रश्न

Notice the use of the word ‘turn’ in the first line, “I think I could turn and live with animals…”. What is the poet turning from?

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उत्तर

In this line here, the poet wants to turn from human into an animal. This turning is symbolic of the poet’s detachment from human beings and their nature and his appreciation of the animal kind.

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Animals
  क्या इस प्रश्न या उत्तर में कोई त्रुटि है?

संबंधित प्रश्न

Mention three things that humans do and animals don’t.


What are the ‘tokens’ that the poet says he may have dropped long ago, and which the animals have kept for him? Discuss this in class .
(Hint Whitman belongs to the Romantic tradition that includes Rousseau and Wordsworth,which holds that civilisation has made humans false to their own true nature.
What could be the basic aspects of our nature as living beings that humans choose to ignore or deny?)


Match the words given in table A with their meanings in table B.

No A
Words
  B
Meaning
(i) whine (a) an offence against religious or moral law
(ii) sin (b) complain in an annoying way
(iii) evince (c) craze
(iv) mania (d) failing to take proper care
(v) negligent (e) show

The poet wishes he could ______.


Animals are not crazy about ______.


State whether the following statement is true or false.

Animals are self-reliant.


State whether the following statement is true or false.

Animals quarrel for their possessions.


State whether the following statement is true or false.

Humans have given up many good qualities.


State whether the following statement is true or false.

Animals suffer humiliation.


State whether the following statement is true or false.

The poet has retained all his natural virtues.


Read the text again, and complete the web, highlighting the good values/habits which we can learn from animals.


Read the poem again and write an appreciation of the poem in a paragraph format with the help of given points.

Points 

  • Title
  • Poet
  • Rhyme scheme
  • Favourite line
  • Theme/Central idea
  • Figures of speech
  • Special features - Type of the poem, language, tone, implied meaning, etc.
  • Why I like/dislike the poem.

Read the following poem and write an appreciation of it with the help of the given points in a paragraph format:

Animals

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are
so placid and self-containe’d 
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition, 
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with
the mania of owning things. 
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that
lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.
So they show their relations to me and I accept them,
They bring me tokens of myself, they evince
them plainly in their possession
I wonder where they get those tokens,
Did I pass that way huge times ago and negligently drop
them?
                                                             - Walt Whitman

You can use the following points while appreciating the given poem.

  1. The title and the poet of the poem     [1]
  2. Rhyme scheme     [1]
  3. Figures of speech     [1]
  4. Central Idea/Theme     [2]

Why does the poet wish to 'turn' and live with animals?


Mention any two reasons why Walt Whitman appreciates animals more than humans.


List any two things that animals do and humans don't.


'They do not sweat and whine about their condition.' What human traits does the poet condemn in these lines?


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