Read the extracts given below and answer the questions that follow.
‘Heads bow, trunks bend, hands fumble towards the black Mother.
Processional stooping through the turf turns work to ritual.
Centuries of fear and homage to the famine god toughen
the muscles behind their humbled knees,
Make a seasonal altar of the sod.’
(a) Name the poem and the poet.
(b) How does potato digging turn into a procession?
(c) Explain: 'famine god' convey?
(d) What does ‘seasonal alter of the sod’ mean?
(e) Pick out and explain the figure of speech in the last line.
(a) The name of the poem is At a Potato Digging and the name of the poet is ‘Seamus Heaney’.
(b) In the poem, the poet compares the potato digging into a traditional procession wherein the labourers are bending down and then they straighten up their body and move forward like devotees. Thus in this way potato digging turn into a procession
(c) ‘Famine god’ conveys many things. It expressed the fear of feminine, it at the same time reminded of the past. It also seems that that are worshipping famine god to keep the famine at bay.
(d) ‘Seasonal alter of the sod’ means that each year the ground becomes the place of worship. The one who is harvesting is only aware that such bounty in nature cannot be taken for granted.
(e) The figure of speech used in the last line is Metaphor. The metaphor is a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
The lines that indicate Metaphor are: the wet Earth yields food, a human necessity and intensified by famine alter of the sod
Couldn't generate an explanation.
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