1
Parklands College of
Education
Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
Subject
: English as a Home Language
Paper
;2
Grade
: 12
Marks
: 60
Examiner
: S. Smïd
Time
: 80 min
INSTRUCTIONS
Answer questions on any 3 poems from Section A (Poetry)
Answer all the questions in Section B (Othello)
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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Section A (Poetry )
QUESTION 1 (Critical Analysis)
The poets of Futility and When I have Fears, both touch on the aspect that life is
meaningless or worthless.
Carefully read the two Nihilism quotes and then link ONE of them to ONE of these two
poems and explain why the link has been made by referencing the particular poem.
You must explore the following in an essay of 250 – 300 words
- why the poet feels that life is meaningless by referring to the text
- the poet’s background
- link this all to the quote
Nihilism quotes:
Quote 1
“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”
― William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Quote 2
“Humanity suffers terribly from the demons it has created over lengths of time.
we learn from nothing that we do; we create religions, heritage, race, traditions, then they
all in turn become our stumbling blocks from becoming one. We suffer from the creations
of our own inability to interpret history. The only thing we have succeeded on is
separation. We are not that different from one another as we think we are, but we are too
corrupted to break our deconstruction.”
― Jeffrey Fischer
Dictionary’s denotation of Nihilism
the rejection of all religious and moral principles, often in the belief that life is
meaningless.
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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The two poems
Futility
Move him into the sun—
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.
Think how it wakes the seeds—
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,—still warm,—too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
—O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?
- Wilfred Owen
When I have Fears
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; -- then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.
- John Keats
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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QUESTION 2
To a small boy who died at Diepkloof Reformatory
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Small offender, small innocent child
With no conception or comprehension
Of the vast machinery set in motion
By your trivial transgression
Of the great forces of authority
Of judges, magistrates, and lawyers,
Psychologists, psychiatrists, and doctors,
Principals, police, and sociologists,
Kept moving and alive by your delinquency
This day, and under the shining sun
Do I commit your body to the earth
Oh child, oh lost and lonely one.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
Clerks are moved into action by your dying;
Your documents, all neatly put together,
Are transferred from the living to the dead,
Here is the document of birth
Saying that you were born and where and when,
But giving no hint of joy or sorrow
Or if the sun shone, or if the rain was falling,
Or what bird flew singing over the roof
Where your mother travailed. And here your name
Meaning in white man’s tongue, he is arrived,
But to what end or purpose is not said.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
Here is the last certificate of death
Forestalling authority he sets you free,
You that did once arrive have now departed
And are enfolded in the sole embrace
Of kindness that earth ever gave to you.
So negligent in life, in death belatedly
She pours her generous abundance on you
And rains her bounty on the quivering wood
And swaddles you about, where neither hail nor tempest
Neither wind nor snow nor any heat of sun
Shall offend you, and the thin cold spears
Of the highveld rain that once so pierced you
In falling on your grave shall press you closer
To the deep repentant heart.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
Here is the warrant of committal,
For this offence, oh small and lonely one,
For this offence in whose commission
Millions of men are in complicity
You are committed. So do I commit you,
Your frail body to the waiting ground,
Your frail body to the waiting ground,
Your dust to the dust of the veld,
Fly home-bound soul to the great Judge-President
Who unencumbered by the pressing need
To give society protection, may pass on you
The sentence of the indeterminate compassion.
- Alan Paton
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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2.1
Comment on the paradox in line 1.
(2)
2.2
Explain the antithesis in line 3 and 4.
(2)
2.3
Explore the earth’s personification in stanza 3 (lines 30 – 37). The text needs
to be referenced in this exploration.
(3)
2.4
Identify the literary device used in these lines: ‘Who … protection’ (lines 45-47)
and discuss its significance in addressing the issue addressed in this poem.(2)
2.5
Supply one abstract noun for Paton’s feelings towards the boy.
(1)
/10/
QUESTION 3
When I have fears
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has gleaned my teeming brain,
Before high-piléd books in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripened grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love; - then on the shore
Of the wide world do I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
- John Keats
3.1
5
10
Is this a Shakespearean or a Petrarchan sonnet? Verify your answer with
at least two facts.
(2)
3.2
Name two things that is causing Keats anxiety. Refer to the text to motivate your
answer.
(2)
3.3
“ ….with the magic hand of chance;” – line 8. Which word in line 11 links to the
sense of magic?
(1)
3.4
Fair creature of an hour line 9 is an exampe of a hyperbole. Explain this in
context of the subject matter of the poem.
(2)
3.5
The rhyming couplet has a rather nihilistic/fatalistic tone. Explore this statement in
context of the poem.
(3)
[10]
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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QUESTION 4
On The Move
'Man, You Gotta Go’.
1.The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows
Some hidden purpose, and the gush of birds
That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows,
Have nested in the trees and undergrowth.
Seeking their instinct, or their pose, or both,
One moves with an uncertain violence
Under the dust thrown by a baffled sense
Or the dull thunder of approximate words.
2. On motorcycles, up the road, they come:
Small, black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boy,
Until the distance throws them forth, their hum
Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh.
In goggles, donned impersonality,
In gleaming jackets trophied with the dust,
They strap in doubt--by hiding it, robust-And almost hear a meaning in their noise.
3. Exact conclusion of their hardiness
Has no shape yet, but from known whereabouts
They ride, directions where the tires press.
They scare a flight of birds across the field:
Much that is natural, to the will must yield.
Men manufacture both machine and soul,
And use what they imperfectly control
To dare a future from the taken routes.
4. It is part solution, after all.
One is not necessarily discord
On Earth; or damned because, half animal,
One lacks direct instinct, because one wakes
Afloat on movement that divides and breaks.
One joins the movement in a valueless world,
Crossing it, till, both hurler and the hurled,
One moves as well, always toward, toward.
5. A minute holds them, who have come to go:
The self-denied, astride the created will.
They burst away; the towns they travel through
Are home for neither birds nor holiness,
For birds and saints complete their purposes.
At worse, one is in motion; and at best,
Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
One is always nearer by not keeping still.
- Thom Gunn
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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4.1 Refer to the subtitle – ‘Man you Gotta Go’
Why does man have to go? Refer to the text to substantiate your answer. (2)
4.2
Man is once again compared to nature in stanza 1. To what conclusion is one
forced to come when comparing man and nature regarding movement? (2)
4.3
Men manufacture both machine and soul,
And use what they imperfectly control
To dare a future from the taken routes.
Explain these lines taken from stanza 3.
4.4
4.5
(3)
Refer to stanza 4 and quote two words that link to the theme of
Nihilism/meaningless of man’s existence also addressed in Futility and
When I have Fears.
(3)
Bonus Marks – Identify the rider on the bike in the middle. This is a picture from
a movie called The Wild One. Give a reason for my insertion of this picture. (2)
[10]
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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QUESTION 5
SONNET 30
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
William Shakespeare
5.1
5.2
Identify the recurring phonic device used in stanza 1 and explore its
effectiveness.
(2)
Quote a phrase in stanza 2 which proves that the poet was not used to
emoting.
(1)
5.3 This Sonnet was written in order for the poet to reminisce again about various
aspects in his life – almost as if he is punishing himself by reliving the pain.
5.3.1 Identify and explore the extended metaphor introduced in line 1 of the Sonnet and
concluded in line 12 of stanza 3.
(3)
5.4 To what conclusion does the poet come in the rhyming couplet?
(2)
5.5
(2)
The tone in the rhyming couplet is different to the rest of the poem. Discuss.
/10/
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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Section B
QUESTION 6: (Contextual Question)
Read the extract below and then answer the questions that follow.
OTHELLO
Behold, I have a weapon –
A better never did itself sustain
Upon a soldier’s thigh. I have seen the day
That with this little arm and this good sword
I have made my way through more impediments 5
Than twenty times your stop. But, O vain boast!
Who can control his fate? ‘Tis not so now.
Be not afraid, though you see me weaponed.
Here is my journey’s end, here is my butt
And very sea-mark of my utmost sail.
10
Do you go back dismayed? ‘Tis lost fear.
Man but a rush against Othello’s breast,
And he retires. Where should Othello go?
Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starred wench!
Pale as thy smock! When we shall meet at comp15
This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven
And fiends will snatch at it. Cold, cold, my girl,
Even like thy chastity.
O cursed, cursed slave! Whip me, ye devils,
From the possession of this heavenly sight!
20
Blow me about in winds! Roast me in sulphur!
Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire!
O Desdemona! Dead Desdemona: dead!
Oh, oh!
Enter Lodovico, Montano, soldiers with Iago prisoner and Cassio in chair
LODOVICO
Where is this rash and most unfortunate man? 25
OTHELLO
That’s he that was Othello. Here I am.
LODOVICO
Where is that viper? Bring the villain forth.
OTHELLO
I look towards his feet; but that’s a fable
If that thou be’st devil, I cannot kill thee.
Othello wounds Iago
LODOVICO
Wrench his sword from him.
IAGO
I bleed, sir, but not killed.
OTHELLO
LODOVICO
I am not sorry neither. I’d have thee live,
For in my sense ‘tis happiness to die.
O, thou Othello, that wert once so good,
Fallen in the practice of a damned slave,
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test
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35
10
What shall be said of thee?
OTHELLO
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
Why, anything –
An honourable murderer, if you will,
For naught did I in hate but all in honour.
In line 7 Othello asks, ‘Who can control his fate?’
A Comment on the irony of this question.
B If you had to answer Othello’s question here, what would
your answer be in terms of your reading of the play?
(2)
(4)
How do lines 14 – 24 [“O ill-starred wench … Oh, oh!”]
contribute to your understanding of Othello’s state of mind at this
stage of the play? As a director, what stage directions would you
give to an actor portraying Othello at this point?
(4)
Comment on this utterance by Othello: “ That’s he that was Othello …” (line 26)
(2)
In their responses to Iago, Lodovico describes him as “that viper” and Othello
questions whether he is “a devil”. Do you consider these assessments as too
extreme? Discuss.
(4)
Refer to lines 32 – 34
[“I am not sorry neither. I’d have thee live,
For in my sense ‘tis happiness to die.”]
Explain why Othello would make a statement like this.
(4)
6.6
Examine your response to Othello’s explanation of the motives for his behaviour
in lines 36 – 37 [“Why anything … all in honour.”]. Would you agree that these
reasons are enough to forgive him?
(3)
6.7
How does Othello redeem himself?
(2)
Theme related questions
6.8
How is the theme of either Honour or Reason vs Passion illustrated in this
extract? You must reference the text when exploring either theme.
(5)
/30/
SSM – Sept 2013 Othello & Poetry Tuesday Test