1. To His Coy Mistress
Q.1. What does the title indicate about the mistress of the poet?
Ans. The title, “To His Coy Mistress” indicates that the poet’s mistress is a shy lady who hesitates to respond quickly to her lover’s advances.
Q.2. Where is Humber situated?
Ans. Humber is a river in Humberside, North-East England, consisting of the estuary of the rivers Trent and Qusi and extending from their confluence for about sixty kilometres to the North Sea.
Q.3. Which Flood does the poet refer to in the poem, “To His Coy Mistress”?
Ans. The Flood, referred to by the poet in “To His Coy Mistress” was the great Flood as related in the Genesis of the Bible. The
Scripture says that the world was destroyed by the Deluge.
Q.4. How does the poet propose to appreciate the different parts of his beloved’s body?
Ans. If the poet and his beloved had enough space and time at their disposal, he would spend a hundred years in praising her eyes and gazing on her forehead; he would spend two hundred years in admiring each of her breasts; and he would spend thirty thousand years in praising the remaining parts of her body.
Q.5. What does the poet always hear behind his back?
Ans. The poet always hears the rumbling sound of Time’s winged chariot that rushes forward to swallow everything eternally. The image of Time’s winged chariot signifies the inevitability of death and the shortness of human life.”
Q.6. What, according to the poet, is the proper time for enjoyment of life?
Ans. According to the poet, it would be proper for the lovers to enjoy the pleasures of love when there is still time, when her skin is still youthful and fresh, and when her responsive soul is burning with a desire for love-making.
Q.7. does the poet propose to his beloved to enjoy the present moment?
Ans. The poet proposes to his beloved that they should be like amorous birds of prey and enjoy the pleasures of love, rather than suffering the pangs of unsatisfied love. In other words, they should enjoy the pleasures of love-making with all their energy and vigour.
Q.8. Why does the poet compare himself and his beloved to the amorous birds of prey?
Ans. The poet proposes to enjoy love-making with his beloved like amorous birds of prey. Here the idea of love-making is combined with fierceness. The lover here speaks in terms of a fierce passion.
Q.9. What is hyperbole?
Ans. Hyperbole is a figure of speech in which something is described as or worse than it really is.
Q.10. What is Carpe Diem Theme’?
Ans. The central theme of the poem, “To His Coy Mistress” is the ‘Carpe Diem’ theme. According to this theme, the wisest man is he who understands the ruthless march of time and knows how to enjoy the present moment without caring for any criticism what so ever.
Q.11. Why is the grave, not a proper place for making love?
Ans. The grave is a place where the dead body lies. But nobody can enjoy the pleasures of love-making there, because the dead body has no sensation or feeling, and ultimately it turns to dust.
Q.12. What is ‘Carpe-Diem Theory”? In which poem do you find it?
Ans. ‘Carpe-Diem Theory’ as illustrated in Andrew Marvell’s poem “To His Coy Mistress” means that one should enjoy the present moment without caring for any criticism whatsoever.
Q.13. How is the lady committing a crime in “To His Coy Mistress”?
Ans. The lady is hesitating to respond to her lover’s advances quickly due to her shyness and thus she is committing a crime by wasting time and approaching gradually towards senility and death.
Q.14. Why does Marvell call his beloved a coy mistress?
Ans. Marvell calls his beloved a coy mistress because she hesitates to respond quickly to her lover’s advances.
Q.15 What are the rivers mentioned in the poem, “The His Coy Mistress”?
Q.16 Name a poem in your syllabus in which a syllogistic pattern has been used. Ans. “To His Coy Mistress”
Q.17. What does the phrase ‘Time’s winged chariot signify?
Ans. The phrase ‘Time’s winged chariot” signifies the fleeting nature of time and the shortness of human life.
Q.18. What is Marvel’s opinion about the grave?
Ans. The poet assures his beloved that the grave is a fine and private place, where none can enjoy the pleasures of love-making. Thus the poet is laying emphasis on the sensual pleasures of the present moments.
II. The Definition of Love
Q.19. What is the nature of the poet’s love in the poem, “The Definition of Love”?
Ans. The love between the poet and his beloved is perfect and divine. As perfect love always remains unfulfilled, the poet regards it as the child of despair and impossibility.
Q.20. Why does the poet term his despair as magnanimous?
Ans. The poet’s sense of frustration has aroused in him a kind which aided him to recognize the divine nature of love. So he has termed his despair as “Magnanimous Despair’ which means high-souled, noble despair.
Q.21. What is the role of hope in the poet’s love affair?
Ans. Hope has been compared to a bird having gaudy wings but not having the required strength to fly high enough. The poet’s hope. being weak could never have touched the heights attained by despair. That means the poet’s love did not hold much promise of fulfilment.
Q.22. How does Fate control the love of two perfect lovers in the poet’s opinion?
Ans. Fate keeps vigil upon two perfect lovers with her envious eyes and impedes them to become close as their union would announce the ruin of her despotic power.
Q.23. How does the poet imagine being united with his beloved?
Ans. The poet imagines some kind of colossus turmoil in the universe that might bring down Heaven upon the earth and would turn the world into a two-dimensional object from her spherical shape. Thus, when the world would achieve a plainispheric form, then only they could be reunited.
Q.24. Which geometrical imagery does the poet use to show the nature of guilty or adulterous love?
Ans. The poet compares the guilty lovers to the two oblique lines in geometry. As oblique lines can meet each other from all geometrical angles, so also only guilty or adulterous lovers can find the fulfilment of their passion.
Q.25. Which geometrical figures are compared to the loves of the poet and his beloved?
Ans. The loves of the poet and his beloved are compared to the two parallel lines in geometry. Such lines can never meet even if they are stretched to infinity. Similarly, the poet and his beloved can never be united.
Q.26. What is the central theme of the poem, “The Definition of Love”?
Ans. Divine or true love means the union of two souls but the separation of two bodies.
Q.27. What are the three conditions for the fulfilment of the poet’s love?
Ans. According to the poet, the two perfect lovers can be united- only if three marvels happen. First, the spinning spheres of the
universe must lose their balance and fall flat. Second, the earth’s globe must be shattered by a convulsion and twisted out of shape. Third, the whole created world must be cramped into a plane.
Q.28. What figure of speech is used in the term ‘Magnanimous Despair’?
Ans. Oxymoron
Q.29. How is the lover’s love begotten in “The Definition of Love”?
Ans. The poet’s love is the child of the marriage of Despair and Impossibility. Despair is the father of Impossibility, the mother of this love.
Q.30. How is the lover’s love begotten in “The Definition of Love”?
Ans. The poet’s love is the child of the marriage of Despair and Impossibility. Despair is the father and Impossibility, the mother of this love.
Q.31. What has prevented the union between the poet and his beloved in ‘The Definition of Love”?
Ans. The indefinable Fate has prevented the union between the soul of the poet and that of his beloved through its complicated policy.
Q.32. What is meant by the phrase ‘vegetable love”?
Ans. By “vegetable love” the poet means a kind of love which is characterized only by growth like vegetables and plants. The poet assumes that due to his beloved’s shyness, his love will continue for thousands of years and grow slowly like a big tree vaster than an empire.
