13
votes
Accepted
Why does the speaker in the famous poem want the western wind to blow?
Some of the question's assumptions need clarification. To begin with, in the United Kingdom as well as in mythology, the western wind is associated with gentle weather rather than "rough winter&...
- 21.1k
10
votes
What is the "love-god's string" in Sarojini Naidu's "A Song in Spring"?
This is a reference to the Hindu god of love, Kama, who, like Cupid, has a magical bow with magical arrows. (Comma overload)
Here is a line from the Shiva Purana as a scriptural reference for this:
...
- 1,235
9
votes
Accepted
Are these lines by Thomas Nuce a translation and/or taken from a longer poem?
It's not a poem: It is from Nuce's 1581 translation of a Latin play called Octavia. (Seneca's 9th tragedy) It's a monologue by the character Seneca that appears in the middle of Act 2, Scene 1.
So ...
- 1,235
8
votes
What is the "living shroud" in Sarojini Naidu's "Dirge"?
Traditional Hindu culture uses clothing and jewellery to mark a woman's marital status. Married women wear bangles of red or green glass, bracelets of gold or conch shell, and/or a ma.ngalasuutra, a ...
- 21.1k
8
votes
Significance of the title of "Corn-Grinders" by Sarojini Naidu
Naidu's title "Corn-Grinders" draws upon a metaphor common in the Indian subcontinent, where a grinding mill symbolizes the pitilessness of existence.
As Spagirl writes in her answer, corn ...
- 21.1k
6
votes
Significance of the title of "Corn-Grinders" by Sarojini Naidu
I understand this question to have two effective parts, ‘why corn?’ and ‘why ‘corn grinders?’
My reading is that ‘corn is used in this sense (per the OED):
II.3.a.Old English–collective singular.
The ...
- 18.4k
5
votes
Accepted
What are the "sirisha-bowers" in Sarojini Naidu's 'Indian Love Song'?
This is शिरीष (śirīṣa), known in English under various names: Wikipedia gives “siris, Indian siris, East Indian walnut, Broome raintree, lebbeck, lebbek tree, frywood, koko and woman’s tongue”. Here’s ...
- 51.8k
4
votes
Where is the setting of Millay's poem Renascence?
It’s usually claimed that Millay was inspired by the view from Mount Battie near Camden, Maine, where she lived as a child. There’s even a plaque attached to a rock near the summit:
Photo by Roger W. ...
- 51.8k
4
votes
What does "the clustering keovas" mean in Sarojini Naidu's "The Snake Charmer"?
Starting from an assumption that it would be a plant and that ‘keovas’ was plural, I added ‘Indian plant’ and ‘Keova’ to the search and found this result:
The Turkish attar is usually adulterated ...
- 18.4k
4
votes
Why is there a kokila in the henna-spray?
First, the meaning of “spray”, which Naidu uses in this sense:
spray, n. 1.a. Small or slender twigs of trees or shrub.
Oxford English Dictionary.
This sense was often used by English poets as a ...
- 51.8k
4
votes
Why are the champak flowers in particular "foredoomed... to shrivel and shrink and fade"?
The lines do not have any specific reference aside from the literal fact that the champak flowers will die. According to Naidu, as the champak tree produces no edible fruit, the only reason for the ...
- 21.1k
3
votes
What is "The sounding cheer of Time's prophetic horn" in Naidu's "An Anthem of Love"?
The prophecy is of India's freedom from British rule.
The Bird of Time was published in 1911. By then, Naidu was active in the struggle for Indian independence. Her parents were members of the Brahmo ...
- 21.1k
3
votes
Poet who asserted that poets lack personality and collect objects to give them one
tl;dr
I'm willing to bet that at some time in the mid-90s, you stumbled across a couple of essays (or excerpts therefrom) by that old possum, Thomas Stearns Eliot.
Deets
This seems like a conflation ...
- 21.1k
2
votes
Meaning of "a bride high-mated with the spheres" in Sarojini Naidu's 'To India'
One of the meanings of "sphere" is planet or star, as in the phrase the music of the spheres. "High-mated" is less easy to parse, but the context provides a few connotations:
...
- 21.1k
2
votes
What does the title of "Leili" mean?
The poem describes night. ("The dying day"..."golden moons") And Leili is a Persian word that means 'night'.
Turns out the word is often used by poets:
In sultry climates of ...
- 1,235
2
votes
Why a "moonless" vigil in Sarojini Naidu's "Dirge"?
You cannot always see the moon in the night sky.
A New Moon rises above the eastern horizon at sunrise with the sun. On this day the Moon then travels across the daytime sky with the sun. A New Moon ...
- 18.4k
2
votes
What deeds are emblematized by the cypress and myrtle in Byron’s “The Bride of Abydos”?
Laurel and olive wreathes commemorated deeds of greatness which immortalized their doers through the retelling of their deeds. In contrast, myrtle wreathes were given for "second tier" ...
- 313
2
votes
What are the Bengali original texts of the poems which Tagore has translated in Stray birds?
Whether the pieces in Stray Birds (1916) can rightly be called poems is debatable. There are indeed a couple of (very) brief poems, such as the one cited in the question. But four lines is as long as ...
- 21.1k
2
votes
The text of Wordsworth's "To Toussaint L'Ouverture"
I found four versions of these lines published by Wordsworth in his lifetime. We can be reasonably confident that these are the poet’s own revisions.
Toussaint! the most unhappy Man of Men,
Whether ...
- 51.8k
1
vote
"Chieftain" and Toussaint's ethnicity in Wordsworth's "To Toussaint L'Ouverture"
Toussaint was born as an enslaved person on Saint-Domingue, but rose to become its Governor General.
My reading is that Kaplan thinks it unlikely that Wordsworth would have referred to a white ...
- 18.4k
1
vote
Meaning of "No turban walks across the lessened floors" in Wallace Stevens' "The Plain Sense of Things"
The second verse continues the idea introduced in the first verse concerning the contrasting loss of creativity /imagination and consequent diminished quality of greatness.
Thus "This great ...
- 71
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