There is another Sky

 2.3 There is Another Sky

 

Title: There is Another Sky

      'There is Another Sky' is an inspirational poem with a message of 'never say-die'. The poet presents two worlds through the title, one is the real world to which the poet and her brother belong. The other one is an imaginative place where both of them take refuge to stay away from the troubles of contemporary times.

The poem: There is Another Sky

The poem is a Petrarchan sonnet with octave and sestet. The poet is communicating to her brother through a letter. She encourages her brother not to get depressed under any circumstances and pleads with him to return home.

Life is full of challenges; one can tackle the challenges with a positive attitude. The poem ends on an optimistic note. The brighter garden stands for choices that life offers to all.

The Poet: Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson is an American poet of the nineteenth century. She lived a lonely life. Most of her poems are motivational and philosophical. They are unique to her era and are characterised by simple and short lines. She often used slant rhymes and unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Her poems are the psalms and hymns of life in all its shades.

Theme:

There is Another Sky" is a sonnet written by Emily Dickinson. The poet wants to convey to the readers that beyond the physical sky, there lies an additional sky. The theme of the sonnet highlights the importance of never giving up and always looking for the best to come.

Ice Breakers

(i) Life is an amalgam of happy and sad moments. Think of such moments in your life, pair with your classmate and share both the aspects of life.

Happy Moments	Sad Moments
1) Winning the first prize in competition	Losing your mobile, bicycle or wallet
2)
3)

Answer:

Happy Moments	Sad Moments
1) Winning the first prize in competition	Losing your mobile, bicycle or wallet
2) Securing highest marks in the exam.	Getting low score in the exam.
3) Enjoying birthday party	Missing a party
4) Attending a wedding ceremony of close relative or friend	Missing a wedding ceremony of a close relative or friend due to unavoidable situation
5) Going to a picnic	Becoming sick
6) Hearing favourite songs	Death of a close relative or friend
7) Getting admission to a desired course / college	Not getting admission to a desired course or college
8) Watching favourite T.V. programme or a film or a play	Attending a boring meeting
9) Spending time with family members on any festival	Getting defeat in any sport match
10) Learning new things	Suffering due to an accident

        

(ii) Discuss with your partner and find proverbs, idioms or phrases of similar meaning to the one given and fill them in the stars given below:

Answer:

1) Every cloud has a silver lining.

 

2) There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

 

3) There are always flowers for those who want to see them.

 

4) I’m thankful for my struggle because without it, I wouldn’t have stumbled upon my strength.

 

5) Once you have been in the dark, you learn to appreciate everything that shines.

 

6) Too many people miss the silver lining because they are expecting gold.

 

7) Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is wonderful stroke of luck.

 

8) Only in the darkness, you can see the stars.

 

9) You never know how strong you are until being strong is your only choice.

 

10) All’s well that ends well.

 

(iii) When we look at the sky, we find several objects. They stand for something or the other. Complete the following table by finding the significance of the given objects. One example is given to you.

Celestial Bodies	Association
The Sun	Power, Heat, Energy, Commitment etc.
The Moon
The Rainbow
The Stars

Answer:

Celestial Bodies	Association
The Sun	Power, Heat, Energy, Commitment etc.
The Moon	Beauty, Calmness, Purity, Compassion, Brightness etc.
The Rainbow	Beauty, Happiness, Dream, Peace etc.
The Stars	Good luck, Gift, Appreciation, Ratings, Celebrity etc.

 

(iv) Colours mentioned in the table given below, are associated with something or the other. Discuss with your partner and complete the table.

Colours	Associated with-
Pink	Warmness, Compassion, Love
Blue	Peace, Gloom
Yellow	Joy, Brightness
Red	Danger, Anger, Love
White	Peace, Defeat
Black	Strength, Darkness

 

History of English Drama.

 4.1 History of English Drama

Drama:

1) Drama is a composition in verse or prose to be acted on the stage, in which a story is related by means of dialogue and action and is represented with, accompanying gesture, costume and scenery as in real life.

2) Drama is a composition designed for performance in the theatre in which actors take the roles of the characters, perform the indicated action and utter the written dialogue

The elements of drama are-

1. plot

2. characterization

3. dialogue

4. settings

5. stage directions

6. conflict

7. theme

(I) Introduction to English Theatre:

Drama has its origins in folk theatre. Drama is a multiple art using words, scenic effects, music, gestures of the actors and the organising talents of a producer. The dramatist must have players, a stage and an audience.

     The beginnings of drama in England are obscure. There is evidence to believe that when the Romans were in England, they established vast amphitheaters for the production of plays but when the Romans departed their theatre departed with them. 

    (Amphitheaters: a circular building without a roof and with rows of seats that rise in steps around an open space. Amphitheaters were used in ancient Greece and Rome.)

Then there were minstrels. (Minstrels: a medieval singer or musician, especially one who sang or recited lyric or heroic poetry to a musical accompaniment for the nobility.) People enjoyed their performances.

Gradually by the 10th century the ritual of the plays that itself had something dramatic in it and had got few features of a play.

Between the 13th and 14th century drama started having themes which were separated from religion. The words themselves were spoken in English, a longer dramatic script came into use, and they were called as Miracle plays. 

(Miracle plays: Miracle plays are among the earliest formally developed plays in medieval Europe. These plays focused on the representation of Bible stories in churches.)

Later, these religious dramas were the Morality plays in which characters were abstract vices and virtues. (Mortality Plays: a kind of allegorical drama having personified abstract qualities as the main characters and presenting a lesson about good conduct and character, popular in the 15th and early 16th centuries.) These were allegories. (Allegory: a story, play, picture, etc. in which each character or event is a symbol representing an idea or a quality, such as truth, evil, death, etc.; the use of such symbols.)

(II) Elizabethan and Restoration Theatre:

The Secular Morality plays have direct links with Elizabethan plays.

Features of the Renaissance Period:

i) They imposed a learned tradition.

ii) They were classical in depth with themes of education.

iii) They presented general moral problems.

iv) They showed secular politics.

v) These plays had nothing to do with religion.

vi) There were examples of both, comedy and tragedy. 

Prime Dramatists:

Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the prime dramatists of this era.

It was Kyd who discovered how easily blank verse might be converted into a useful theatrical medium which Shakespeare used brilliantly in all his plays.

     Tragedy developed in the hands of Kyd and Marlowe.

Comedy had also proceeded beyond rustic humour.

By the nineties of the 16th century, the theatre in England was fully established but complicated conditions governed the activities of the dramatist.

The public theatre of the 16th century:

i) It differed in many important ways from the modern theatre.

ii) It was open to sky.

iii) They were without artificial lighting.

iv) The stage was a raised platform with the recess at the back supported by pillars.

v)There was no curtain and the main platform could be surrounded on three sides by the audience.

vi) There were galleries around the theatre.

In the 17th century the enclosed theatre gained importance. There was increasing attention to scenic device as theatre became private.

William Shakespeare:

Shakespearean era came into existence in the 16th century to the public theatre. He wrote for the contemporary theatre, manipulating the Elizabethan stage with great resource and invention. William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

Ben Johnson:

Ben Johnson was contemporary to William Shakespeare. He was a classicist, a moralist and a reformer of drama. In comedy, Johnson’s genius is found at its best and his influence was considerable. The Restoration dramatists leaned strongly upon him.

Closing of theatres:

Closing of theatres by the Puritans in 1642. The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. With the Civil wars no theatre existed between 1642 to 1660.

The next phase which appeared after the Restoration produced a very different kind of dramatic literature. Dramatists like Chapman, Thomas Middleton, Webster and Dekker were at the forefront.

    When Charles II came back with the Restoration of 1660, the theatres were reopened. The Restoration comedy achieved its peculiar excellence. Drama developed into class drama with upper-class ethos. It lasted beyond this period into the first decade of the 18th century.

Comedy in the early 18^thcentury declined into sentimentalism. It became Comedy of Manners. George Etherege was its most important exponent. From such depths the drama was rescued by Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan.

(III) Modern Theatre:

Features:

1) Use of picture frame stage.

2) Actresses taking female parts.

3) Moveable scenery designed to create a visual image for each scene.

4) Use of artificial lights.

5) Irregular spectacle, melodrama and farce.

6) Monopoly held by the two houses, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, for the performance of serious drama.

7) The audiences which gathered to the 19^th century theatre had not the intelligence or the imagination of the Elizabethan audience.

8) The danger in the 19th century theatre was that, above all, it was unrelated to the life of the time.

Henrik Ibsen:

    Ibsen was the great Norwegian dramatist of the 19th century. He dominates the modern drama. He developed modernist, realist, social and psychological dramas like The Doll’s house, Ghosts, and An Enemy of the People. They are far more subtle in stagecraft and profound in thought than anything in the modern English theatre.

G. B. Shaw:

    George Bernard Shaw was deeply influenced and affected by Ibsen’s innovative contributions and experimentation. He was the most brilliant playwrights of his times. He alone had understood the greatness of Ibsen and he was determined that his own plays should also be a vehicle for ideas.

The responsibility of elevation of the English drama to the brilliance of the Ibsen, fell with Oscar Wilde and G. B. Shaw in the late 19^th and early 20^th century.

The 20^th century Drama:

The 20^th century showed a talent in the drama with which the 19^th century could not compete. H. Granville Barker, John Galsworthy, St. John Ervine were some of the playwrights who explored contemporary problems. St. John Ervine had been associated with a group of Irish dramatists whose work was normally produced in the Abbey theatre in Dublin. Much that is best in the modern drama in English developed from this movement. One of its originators were Lady Gregory with W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge. They were the most important dramatists of this Irish revival who used a sense of tragic irony, a violent species of humour and a rich and highly flavoured language.

       T.S. Eliot experimented with Greek tragedy in the early forties of the 20th century. Other dramatists of the modern era, John Osborne, wrote on people who grew up after the Second World War.

Kingsley Amis wrote about frustrated, anti-establishment young people. Osborne’s ‘Look Back in Anger’ brought a new vitality to the theatre scene. It was more a cultural phenomenon than the work of literature.

Other important playwrights of the modern era include Anton Chekhov, Bertolt Brecht, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Tennessee William, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter.

(IV) Indian Theatre:

Featurers:

i) Earliest seeds of modern Indian Drama can be found in the Sanskrit Drama.

ii) From the first century A.D. ‘Mahabhasya’ by Patanjali provides a feasible date for the beginning of theatre in India.

iii) ‘A Treatise on Theatre’ (Natya Shastra) by Bharat Muni is the most complete work of dramatology in the ancient world. It gives mythological account of the origin of theatre.

iv) Modern Indian drama however, has influences from all over the world, as well as Sanskrit and Urdu traditions.

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Objective Test

1) Name any four periods of History of British Drama.

Answer:- The four periods of History of British Drama are:

i) Medieval period

ii) Renaissance period

iii) Restoration period

iv) Victorian period

2) List the four elements of drama.

Answer:- The four elements of drama are plot, characters, theme and stage directions. 

3) State a type of drama each from any four periods of history.

Answer:-

i) Medieval period         

:- Robin Hood, Everyman

ii) Renaissance period          

:- Romeo and Juliet, Duchess of Malfi

iii) Restoration period  

:- All for Love, The Way of the World

iv) Victorian period       

:- The Importance of Being Earnest, A Doll’s House

4) Compare the features of a comedy and tragedy.

Answer:-

Comedy	Tragedy
i) A comedy deals with humorous story with a happy ending.	i) The tragedy deals with a serious or darker themes with sad ending.
ii) A comedy creates laughter and fun.	ii) A tragedy creates emotions of pity and fear.
iii) A comedy depends mostly on unusual circumstances and witty dialogues	iii) In tragedy the main character mostly has a moral flaw that causes the tragic end.
iv) A Comedy uses humorous dialogues and situations to give relief	iv) A tragedy evokes pity for the characters and teach moral lesson.

5) Define drama.

Answer:- Drama is a composition in verse or prose to be acted on the stage. It tells a story through action, costume, setting and dialogue.

First Unit Test.

 Unit Test No. 1

Std. XI (English)

Marks: 25

Time: 1 Hour 30 Min.

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Q.1. Read the extract and complete the activities given below.(13)

The next thing Moru Dada wanted to do was spray some pesticide on the plants. He claimed that it would give a higher yield. This was something we did not want to do. We were clear that we would not use any chemicals and tried to explain it to him. He reacted as if we had suggested hara-kiri. It took a lot of convincing to ensure that Moru Dada and his friends did not use any chemicals on the farm. They refused to understand how crops could grow without sprays.           Contrary to what everyone had told us, nature did her job and she needed no bribes to get the work done. Soon it was harvest time and we managed a respectable 300 kilograms. An awful lot of moong and with it a lot of confidence. Now I was certain the land was fertile and that it was possible to grow crops without chemicals. It was a major morale booster. The Scent of Rice           The first year I was late for the rice-sowing season and had to resort to growing the GR4 variety that was short term and recommended by the agricultural officers at Kosbad. The next year we decided that we would start early and try to find some good traditional variety of rice to grow. We had read about traditional varieties of rice and knew that they did not require very high inputs of fertilizers. These varieties were also quite strong and resisted pests. We were sure that it was this type of rice that would grow well in our farm where we did not use any chemicals at all. Our previous year’s experience and low yield had taught us a lesson and we were sure we would not plant hybrids this year.            In April 2005, we started to look for a good variety of traditional rice. It was one of our neighbours in the village, a businessman from Mumbai who owned land, who suggested that we plant a local scented variety of rice. Most of the farmers in and around the village of Peth had switched over to hybrids. The younger generation of farmers thought I was crazy to ask for the ‘desi’ variety, as they called it. My regular visits to the villages around searching for a good traditional variety also did not yield any results and we were almost giving up hope.

A1. True or False   (2)

Rewrite the following statements and state whether they are true or false.

1) Most of the farmers used hybrid variety in their farm.

2) The writer needed traditional variety of rice.

3) The land of the narrator was not fertile.

4) The writer agreed to spray pesticides on the crop.

A2. Give reasons   (2)

The writer wanted to grow the traditional variety of rice because------

A3. Guess   (2)

The writer almost gave up hope of finding the desi variety of rice. Guess its reasons.

A4. Personal response. (2)

Note down any two problems faced by the farmer nowadays in your locality.

A5. Language Study (2)

Do as directed.

1) This was something we did not want to do.

(Make simple sentence)

2) In April 2005, we started to look for a good variety of traditional rice.

( Frame a wh- type question to get the underlined words as answer)

3) Most of the farmers in and around the village of Peth had switched over to hybrids.

(Identify the tense)

A6. Vocabulary.           (2)

Match word given under ‘A’ with their meaning under ‘B’.

A	B
1) morale	a) try to prevent
2) resisted	b) capable of producing crops
3) traditional	c) confidence
4) fertile	d) conventional

 

 

 

 

Q.2. Read the extract and complete the activities given below.  (08)

Eight years have passed Since I placed my cherry seed in the grass. “Must have a tree of my own,” I said, And watered it once and went to bed And forgot; but cherries have a way of growing, Though no one's caring very much or knowing. And suddenly that summer near the end of May, I found a tree had come to stay. It was very small, five months child, Lost in the tall grass running wild. Goats ate the leaves, the grass cutter scythe Split it apart and a monsoon blight Shrivelled the slender stem...... Even so, Next spring I watched three new shoots grow, The young tree struggle, upward thrust Its arms in a fresh fierce lust For light and air and sun.

 

A1. Complete  (2)

1) The thought which prompted the poet to plant the cherry seed is --

2) The threats for the cherry tree are---- 1) ----------- 2) ----------3) ------

A2. Explain  (2)

The young tree struggle, upward thrust. Its arms in a fresh fierce lust.

(Explain these lines)

A3. Personal Response (2)

Give your experience of planting or caring a tree in few words.

A4. Poetic device  (2)

Find out one example from the extract for the following figures of speech:

1) Alliteration              

2) Antithesis

Q.3. Write any one of the following. (04)

1) E- Mail Writing

Write an e mail with proper format to the Divisional Officer, Satpuda Mountain Ranges, Nagpur, seeking permission for the mountaineering expedition to be organized by your college.

Use the following points:

E - mail address: satpuda@gmail.com Give number of persons ready for mountaineering, give assurance to follow rules and regulations, give dates of expedition etc.

OR

2) Letter Writing

You want a bona fide certificate in order to get concession in MSRTC bus monthly pass fare. Write a letter of application to the principal of your junior college requesting him/her to issue you the same.

Use the following points:  

Name: XYZ, Class- XI (A), Register No. 4212, Give date of birth. Need to get bona fide certificate to get concession in travelling.

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Seen Prose: 13 Marks

Seen Poetry: 08 Marks

Writing Skill: 04 Marks

Total: 25 Marks

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