CBSE solutions for इंग्लिश लिटरेचर रीडर कक्षा १२ chapter 4 - Ode: To Autumn [Latest edition]

• Think of as many words associated with seasons that come to your mind. What kinds of colours, images, sounds and activities do you associate with each of them? Discuss with your partner.
• Now complete the following table.

‘Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run’

Complete the sentence suitably, based on the given extract.

The poet is describing a ______ called ______. It is full of ______ and
______. Its close friend is the ______ because they both conspire and fill all ______ with ripeness. The ______ are climbing over the roof of the cottage.

‘With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the massed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees.’

List the various activities that autumn and summer are busy in

• _____________________________
• _____________________________
• _____________________________
• _____________________________
• _____________________________
• _____________________________

‘Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells.’

1. Who is being referred to as ‘they’?
2. What do they think? Why?
3. What kind of effect is achieved with the use of words such as ‘o’er brimmed’ and ‘clammy’?
4. What is the overall effect of this stanza?
5. Describe the images and word pictures in this stanza.

‘For summer has o’er-brimmed their clammy cells.’

1. Who is being referred to as ‘thee’?
2. What figure of speech is being used here?
3. What is the ‘store’ in this line?

‘Who hath not seen thee oft amid they store’? The person who seeks autumn can find her in a number of places. Autumn is no longer as full as described in Stanza 1. Autumn has been personified here.

a) What are the various places that autumn can be found in? Read lines 12-22 carefully and complete the table:

b) What are the various activities which autumn is doing or has paused in doing?

Lines 14-15 ______

Lines 16-17 ______

Lines 17-18 ______

Lines 18-19 ______

Lines 21-22 ______

c) ‘Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,’

1. What question does the poet ask here? Why?
2. What answer does the poet give?
3. What does the poet suggest by the phrase ‘songs of spring’?

d) ‘While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue’

1. Pick out the words which describe the following:
   • clouds
   • day
   • plains
2. Why does the poet use these words?

‘Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.’

You may have noticed that in Stanza 1, the images were all connected to a cottage and its surroundings. In Stanza 2 the poem takes us to open spaces, Stanzas 1 and 2 are rich in visual detail.

In stanza 2 from lines 27-33, what are the images being evoked? Which of your senses do these lines stimulate?

Read lines 27-33. Complete the following table:

Study the given picture. To which stanza does it relate? Give the description in the boxes in your own words.

The paragraph below is a critical appreciation of the poem. Choose the correct word(s) from those given in the box and fill in the blanks suitability.

______ by ______ has been termed by many critics as the ______ poem because it gives the reader a complete picture of the ______ and ______ of autumn.

The first stanza is full of beautiful and vivid ______ of the season. There exists a close friendship between Autumn and the ______. During autumn both are ______ how to 'load and bless' plants, vines and trees with ______ and ______. All the descriptions in stanza 1 build up to give us an image of ______.

In the ______ stanza, the poet describes autumn as a ______. The figure of speech used here is ______. Most of the images are those of a figure in a static position or in arrested motion. The poet shifts his view in this stanza beyond the 'cottage trees' of the ______ stanza to the granary. Various activities connected with
______ are mentioned such as winnowing, ______, ______ and ______.

The final stanza begins with a disturbing and wistful ______ but it is ______ quickly. The poet now gives us the images of ______ plains and ______ clouds at the ______ of an autumn day. There are several striking sound images in the stanza such as the ______ of gnats, the ______ of ______, the ______ of ______, the ______ of the ______ and the ______ of ______.

You have read the poem ‘Ode To Autumn’, studied it closely and found how Keats uses various visual, tactile (touch), auditory (sound) images to create a complete picture of the season. Now write to a friend abroad who has never experienced an Indian summer or an Indian monsoon.

Choose the season you most like and write an article/poem on it. Use the given clues.

• the sights
• the sounds
• the activities
• your thoughts and feeling