CBSE Class 9 - English (Communicative) - Poem - The Solitary Reaper (Reference To Context Questions) (#cbseNotes)

Poem - The Solitary Reaper (Reference To Context Questions)

CBSE Class 9 - English (Communicative)

Poet : William Wordsworth

Read the given extracts given below and answer the questions that follow:

1. Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!

Question 1: What is meant by single in the field?

Answer: It means that the girl is working alone in the fields.

Question 2: Who is the highland lass?

Answer: The Highland lass refers to a girl from the mountainous areas of Scotland.

Question 3: What draws poets attention to the girl?

Answer: The girl's song and her melodious voice draw the poet attention.

Question 4: Why does the poet ask his listeners to 'gently pass'?

Answer: Because he thinks the passers by might disturb her and she would stop singing.

Question 5: What is reaping?

Answer: Cutting down and gathering a crop such as corn or rice

2. Alone she cuts, and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain:
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound. 

Question 1: What type of song she is singing?

Answer: Not a happy one as the words 'melancholy strain' suggest.

Question 2: What is the meaning of 'vale profound'?

Answer: Deep valley

Question 3: What does 'she' refer to? What is she doing?

Answer: She refers to the Highland Scottish girl and she is reaping, cutting and singing in a field.

3. No nightingale did ever chant
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of Travellers in some shady haunt.
Among Arabian Sands

Question 1: Where did the nightingale sing?

Answer: It seemed that the Nightingale sung in an oasis in the deserts of Arabia.

Question 2: Why are the Travellers weary?

Answer: The Travellers are weary because they are travelling through the hot deserts of Arabia.

Question 3: Why has the poet compared the nightingales song to that of the solitary reaper?

Answer: The song of nightingale refreshes the tired travellers because it tells that an oasis is nearby. The song of the reaper also bring pleasure and joy to the poet.

Question 4: Name the two poetic devices used by the poet in the above lines.

Answer:
① Alliteration among Arabian Sands
② Synecdoche among Arabian Sands. The term Arabian Sands is used to describe the Arabian desert.

☛Alliteration: the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
e.g. She sells sea-shells down by the sea-shore.

☛Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa,
e.g. Music is my bread and butter.
Here bread represents 'money'.

4. A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard
In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird.
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.

Question 1: Which season is announced by the cuckoo bird?

Answer: Spring season.

Question 2: What is so thrilling?

Answer: The highland's lass voice is more thrilling than the song of the Cuckoo bird.

Question 3: Why has the poet refer to the spring time?

Answer: Season of joy and pleasure after the cold winter month

Question 4: What are the hebrides?

Answer: The hybrides islands lie to the north west of Scotland

Question 5: Name the poetic device used by the poet in Breaking The Silence of the seas?

Answer: Hyper Bole. The poet exaggerates for effect as he says that the Cuckoo bird voice breaking the silence of the ocean.