Samuvel Sankari

THE DEATH OF THE BIRD – Alec Derwent Hope                 A.D. Hope was an Australian poet. He was endowed with a high degree of sympathy for all living creatures. “The Death of the Bird” is a good example for the poet’s ability to describe the experience of the bird from inside; the poet describes the migration of the bird, its living through a warm climate and its isolation in death.                 The poet is talking about a bird towards the end of her life. It is a migratory bird which moves seasonally from one place to another, in search of food and warmth. Since the winter has arrived the bird’s love for the warmer region makes her to remain the path to such a place. She remembers the entire navigation details by heart.                 There is a predet...

A NEGRO LABOURER IN LIVERPOOL by David Rubadiri                 David Rubadiri was an African poet much concerned with the issues of race and colour. His poems plead for a humane attitude towards the Black workers. His poem ‘A Negro Labourer in Liverpool’ describes the misery of a Black labourer in White Liverpool. He looks in vain for sympathy and understanding and is resigned to his lot.                 The poet describes the physical condition of a Negro labourer. He walks with his head bowed and in a bent uncomfortable position. He is stressed, drained, damaged and totally exhausted. He is just like a dark shadow, which had no significance of its own. A Negro does not possess any individual identity. He walks in the dark back pavements but still he does not raise his head. His bowed head implies that he doesn’t even have the freedo...

A PSALM OF LIFE H.W. Longfellow                 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a pioneer poet of America. He was a humanist and lover of freedom. His poem “A Psalm of Life” is a celebration of human life and courageous action against all odds in life. It describes the purpose of life and how one should handle the sorrows and struggles along the way of life. ‘Psalm’ means a song of praise. Thispoem glorifies life. The poet tells that some philosophers lament that life is an empty dream. But the poet asserts that life is real, serious ad meaningful.                 The poet says that life is real and true and that death is not the goal of life. He asserts that the soul lives on and does not turn to dust. ‘Dust thou art, to dust returnest’, is in fact said of the body and not of the soul.        ...

Alfred Lord Tennyson is regarded as the chief representative of the Victorian era. All the intellectual tendencies of the age are reflected in his poetry. “The Lady of shallot” is a narrative poem in four parts that takes us into the atmosphere of medieval romance. The poem begins with a description of a river and a road that passes through the fields of Barley and Rye. The people of the town travel along the road which faces an island called Shallot, which lies in the middle of the river. The island of Shallot contains several plants and flowers, including lillies, aspens and willows. On the island, a woman known as the lady of Shallot is imprisoned within a building made up of ‘four grey walls and for grey towers’. Both ‘heavy barges’ and light open boats sail along the edge of the river to Camelot. People pass along the road of the river but, still no one has seen the Lady of Shallot. Only the reapers who harvest the Barley hear the echo of her singing. At night the tired reaper...

William Blake was regarded as one of the precursors of the Romantic Revival, in English poetry. “The Chimney Sweeper” was a short poem of 24 lines made up of six stanzas. This poem was taken from the “Songs of Innocence” The narrator, a young boy was sold to a chimney owner by his father after the depth of his mother. He was so young that he did not even know how to weep. The repetition of the word ‘weep’ is not only for poetic effect but to suggest that he were a little bit mature he would have wept and pleaded his father not to sell him. However being incapable of expressing his pain, he was sold. From that day onwards, he swept the chimneys and slept in the midst of ashes. The narrator tells about another boy named Tom Dacre. Tom cried a lot for his curled hair being shaven and the narrator only consoled him. He said to Dacre that since his white hair has been shaved it is been saved from turning blackish by the ashes. The narrator’s maturity can be seen in this advice. Though h...

John Donne was an English poet, born in 1572. He was considered as the pre-eminent representative of the metaphysical poets. His works are noted for their strong, sensual style. “A Hymn to God, the Father” also titled “To Christ” is taken from “Holy Sonnets”. In this poem the poet makes a confession on various degrees of sin – conscious, unconscious, infectious and damnable. Donne begins the poem by referring to the sin of Adam and Eve, which led to the fall of man. This sin is inherited in every human being. So Donne asks for the forgiveness of God, though he is not directly involved in it. Donne also asks God to forgive the sins, that he has committed in his life and for the sin which he keeps committing, though he himself hate it. Donne creates a deliberate pun in the final lines of the stanza, challenging God. Donne is implying that once God has forgiven these two sinful traits, He is not finished because Donne still has more to be forgiven. He continues with his pleading for...

                This Requiem is taken from Act IV Scene ii of the play “Cymbeline” by Shakespeare. A Requiem is a song that celebrates the dead and prays for their peace. This requiem is regarding the death of Cloten. Shakespeare looks upon death as a relief from physical needs, deficiencies and sorrows of life. A dead person can neither feel the heat of the sun, nor the bitter coldness of the winter season. Shakespeare’s comparison of the heat of the sun and the coldness of the winter reinforces the idea that there is no need to fear about the harsh seasons after the death. After death a person goes to heaven, which is his permanent home. As a laborer works and goes home after taking his wages, the dead person too goes to heaven along with his success and failures. The poet further advises not to be disappointed of death, because death is the fate of every person. It lays its icy hands over all. It lays it...

                Shakespeare was one of the greatest poet, playwright and dramatist of England. He has written 37 plays and 154 sonnets. His plays are famous all over the world. This sonnet is the finest examples of his poems. A Sonnet is a short poem of 14 lines. The first 8 lines are called Octave and the last 6 lines are called sestet. A Shakespearean sonnet is divided into quatrains and couplet. His sonnet consist of 3 quatrain and a couplet. A sonnet has different rhyme schemes and the rhyme scheme of Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg. Sonnet 116 is addressed to a young man, who is found to be a man with the initials of ‘W.H.’. In this sonnet Shakespeare depicts the qualities of true love. True love is constant. It is unchangeable even in the old age. Like a star, true love rules the destiny of man. True love is like a lighthouse and is not moved even by a fierce storm. It is eternal and immeasura...

R.N. Roy was a Professor of English in Nagpur University. In this present extract the writer compares the life and achievements of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Both Gandhi and King belonged to the 20 th century, a century that has witnessed more hatred and cruelties than any other century in this history of the world. Both fought for the welfare of the downtrodden, King for the welfare of the Black Americans and Gandhi for the Harijans. As an ardent clergyman, King believed in the equality of man. The racial discrimination deeply distressed him. Though few White Americans grant few concessions for Blacks, their misery constantly haunts them. They always live in a constant economic insecurity and they are also deprived of normal education and social opportunities. The Blacks were harassed by day and were haunted by night. A Black was nobody in his own land. The economic insecurity, social inferiority, fear and resentment were enveloped in a Blacks personality. Though th...

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was an American politician. He served as the 35 th president of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. The present extract was a speech given by him at American University, Washington on June 10, 1963. In his speech Kennedy stressed the importance of world peace. Kennedy meant a genuine peace and not that of the peace enforced by the Pax Americana. According to him peace will make life on earth worth living and people will be able to build a better life for their children. Kennedy pointed out the dangers of the new face of war. A singular nuclear weapon is far more dangerous than the weapons used by all the allied forces in the Second World War. The poisonous gas emitted during a nuclear exchange would affect even the unborn generations. So Kennedy felt that to know the value of peace is of utmost importance in this modern age of weapons. Many nations spend billions of dollars in acquiring weapons, though they say th...

                The 14 th Dalai Lama delivered his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech om 10 th December 1989 in the assembly hall at the University of Oslo, Norway. In this speech Tenzin Gyatso, the 14 th Dalai Lama of Tibet, brought both the plight of Tibet and Dalai Lama into the global spotlight.                 Dalai Lama felt happy and honored to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. He accepted the award as a tribute to Mahatma Gandhi. He felt that by giving this award to a simple monk of Tibet, it is once again proved that with the help of courage and determination, Tibet will be liberated.                 Dalai Lama said that the basic needs of all human beings are the same. All human beings want happiness, freedom and the right to determine their own desti...

“The Day My World Changed” is a prologue to Malala’s autobiographical work, “I Am Malala”. In this prologue she gives an account of 9 th October 2012, the day on which the Talibans attacked her.                 Malala was in Birmingham, England. She was taken there for her treatment and was forced to stay there for her own safety. She missed her country Pakistan. Though England is far more developed and all the modern equipments are readily available, the snow-topped mountains, green waving fields and the fresh blue rivers of Pakistan gave her more happiness and peace.                  Malala did her schooling in Khushal School, which was founded by her father even before she was born. The school was in the midst of a busy street, but still it gives no hints to the passer-by of what lies beyond the gate, mainly for the Talibans. The d...

William Ralph Inge is well known as a genial writer on topics of contemporary interest. In “Spoon Feeding”, he elaborates on how mankind is dwindling into a race of pygmies by excessive dependence on the comforts of science and technology.                 He begins his essay by comparing the noble savage with the modern man. According to Inge, the noble savage is far better than the civilized people because he never had any trouble with his teeth. He was able to tear tough meat without the help of knife and fork. But the modern man eats with the help of knife and fork and that became the reason for the most of his diseases.                 Earlier the house wives used to bake bread and make her own jam but now she has become incapable of anything. The laborers before industrial revolution were self-sufficing, but now he depends on tool...

Chapter 10: When Night Came The Time Traveller’s hope of escape vanished when he came to know about the Marlocks.   Before he thought that he just had to deal with the Childish and feeble Eloi’s but the inhuman attitude of the Marlocks made him to feel bad. He felt like being caught in a trap. The Time Traveller, being a man of logic, started to fear the new moon day. Weena had said about those dark nights and Time Traveller too thought that some danger is going to come on those days. He now understood the reason behind the fear of the Elois. He now came to a conclusion that his previous speculation that the Eloi’s are the aristocrats and the Marlocks are the servants are wrong. The time Traveller came to a conclusion that the Marlocks are in charge of the Eloi’s. He understood that it is the Marlocks who make ready the garments of the Elois.   He thought that the Marlocks were like those men who enjoy killing animals in sport. Suddenly he thought of the meat that he saw u...

Chapter III: THE  TIME TRAVELLER RETURNS No one believed in the Time Traveller. They thought that the time machine is not going to work out. Even if Filby had said these things they would have believed. The following week the guests met again in the Time Traveller's house. The Time Traveller was not there. The narrator wondered where he would have gone. But since its time and since there was a message from Time Traveller to have their dinner, if in case he come late, the guests started to have their dinner. And this time there were few new guests. The guests gave their own reason for the absence of the Time Traveller the editor asked about the time machine.   since the psychologist operated the time machine he thought he know more than others and he started explaining about it. While they were talking the Time Travller entered through the corridor doors and the narrator was the first one to see him. The narrator noticed that his coat was so dirty, his hair was disordered his...