'Weavers, weaving solemn and still,
What do you weave in the moonlight chill?...
White as a feather and white as a cloud,
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud!
i) Why do the weavers weave in the chill of midnight?
ii) Which line suggests that the weavers are affected by what they are weaving?
iii) Whose shroud do you think the weavers are weaving? Give reasons for your answer.
Answers
Answer:
Indian Weavers was written by Sarojini Naidu in the 1920s. Besides being a great poetess, she was one of the leading figures of the Indian Independence Movement. This article therefore is also a lookout into what happened to the weavers of India after independence. Indian weavers who were once favorites in king’s homes to poor man’s huts are now pushed to extinction by governments, politicians, large textile mills and arrogant bureaucrats. Suppose Sarojini Naidu returns, and finds this?
I. ABOUT SAROJINI NAIDU’S POEM INDIAN WEAVERS.
The range, variety and magnificence of Indian weavers’ work.
Indian weavers weave at the break of day, at the fall of night and at midnight, i.e. throughout day and night. It is a back-breaking job they do round the clock to make a frugal living out of it. But it is not the perpetuality of their work that is discussed in the poem but the variety, range and magnificence of their products. At the break of day they weave the gay robes of a new-born child, as blue as the wing of a helicon wild. At fall of night, they are weaving the happy marriage veils of a queen, so bright like the purple and green plumes of a peacock. Thus the weavers have passed through a birth in the morning and a nuptial in the evening. Now they are to pass through a death at midnight. Their mirth and joviality are over and they are now solemn and still, preparing to weave the garment in the next order, an express order. In the moonlit chill of midnight they are now weaving the funeral shroud of a dead man, as white as a feather and as white as a cloud.
This here is the poet’s licentious use of the word Helicon which was a mythical Macedonian river in Greece which was blue only when it flowed peacefully in its halcyon days but then it never could have been wild also simultaneously. Or it might have dawned on her mind the butterflies belonging to the Heliconiinae species, some of which do have blue wings but are not wild, except during mating dances. When we hear the word Helicon, if we are poets, what normally comes to our minds is the image of an explosion of bright clouds in a serene blue sky, but poets are not normal always. If they are interested in a word and love to use it, they just use it without caring for the meaning the world uses it with. When they do this, we would love the meaning changed to what they meant.
Explanation:
Answer:
Indian Weavers was written by Sarojini Naidu in the 1920s. Besides being a great poetess, she was one of the leading figures of the Indian Independence Movement. This article therefore is also a lookout into what happened to the weavers of India after independence. Indian weavers who were once favorites in king’s homes to poor man’s huts are now pushed to extinction by governments, politicians, large textile mills and arrogant bureaucrats. Suppose Sarojini Naidu returns, and finds this?
I. ABOUT SAROJINI NAIDU’S POEM INDIAN WEAVERS.
The range, variety and magnificence of Indian weavers’ work.
Indian weavers weave at the break of day, at the fall of night and at midnight, i.e. throughout day and night. It is a back-breaking job they do round the clock to make a frugal living out of it. But it is not the perpetuality of their work that is discussed in the poem but the variety, range and magnificence of their products. At the break of day they weave the gay robes of a new-born child, as blue as the wing of a helicon wild. At fall of night, they are weaving the happy marriage veils of a queen, so bright like the purple and green plumes of a peacock. Thus the weavers have passed through a birth in the morning and a nuptial in the evening. Now they are to pass through a death at midnight. Their mirth and joviality are over and they are now solemn and still, preparing to weave the garment in the next order, an express order. In the moonlit chill of midnight they are now weaving the funeral shroud of a dead man, as white as a feather and as white as a cloud.
This here is the poet’s licentious use of the word Helicon which was a mythical Macedonian river in Greece which was blue only when it flowed peacefully in its halcyon days but then it never could have been wild also simultaneously. Or it might have dawned on her mind the butterflies belonging to the Heliconiinae species, some of which do have blue wings but are not wild, except during mating dances. When we hear the word Helicon, if we are poets, what normally comes to our minds is the image of an explosion of bright clouds in a serene blue sky, but poets are not normal always. If they are interested in a word and love to use it, they just use it without caring for the meaning the world uses it with. When they do this, we would love the meaning changed to what they meant.
Explanation: