NCERT Solutions - Not Marbles, Nor the Gilded Monuments
TEXTBOOK QUESTIONS (SOLVED)
7. Answer the following questions briefly.
(a) Why do you think the rich and the powerful people get monuments and statues erected in their memory?
Or
What, according to the poet, do the rich and powerful long for? [C.B.S.E., 2011 (T-1)]
Ans: The rich and powerful put up monuments not only to display their wealth and status but mainly to secure a lasting remembrance. They long for a permanent legacy so that future generations will know and honour them. This desire for lasting fame shows their wish for a kind of immortality and reveals an element of vanity.
(b) Describe how the monuments and statues brave the ravages of time?
Ans: No matter how grand or gold-plated, monuments are subject to decay. Weather and erosion gradually wear them away, neglect weakens them, and wars or deliberate destruction can break them. Over long periods, such structures crumble and lose their former splendour.
(c) Why does the poet refer to Time as being sluttish?
Ans: By calling Time sluttish, the poet personifies Time as careless and wasteful in its treatment of beauty. Time does not protect or respect beauty; it scatters, spoils and changes it indiscriminately, so that everything lovely is gradually lost or altered.
(d) The poet says that neither forces of nature nor wars can destroy his poetry. In fact, even godly powers of Mars will not have a devastating effect on his rhyme. What quality of the poet is revealed through these lines?
[C.B.S.E., 2011 (T-1)]
Ans: These lines show the poet's strong confidence and optimism in the power of poetry and love. He believes his verse will confer a kind of immortality on the beloved that natural forces and even war cannot destroy.
8. Shakespeare's sonnet has been divided into three quatrains of 4 lines each followed by a rhyming couplet. Each quatrain is a unit of meaning. Read the poem carefully and complete the following table on the structure of the poem.
Ans:
| Rhyme scheme | Theme |
Quatrain 1 | ab ab | Comparison between poetry and physical monuments; introduction of the idea that monuments fail to preserve true beauty. |
Quatrain 2 | cd cd | Ravages of time, weather and war on monuments contrasted with the idea of a living record that preserves the beloved. |
Quatrain 3 | ef ef | Assertion that the poet's verse will preserve the beloved's memory for posterity. |
Couplet | g g | The couplet states plainly that the poet's poem will immortalise the beloved. |
SOME OTHER IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
Q1. What is the theme of sonnet 55?
Ans: The central theme of Sonnet 55 is the eternal power of love and of poetry. Shakespeare argues that material monuments-however grand-are vulnerable to decay, weather and war, but a poem can defy Time and preserve the memory of the beloved. He insists that not even the sword of Mars or the ravages of nature can destroy the fame that verse confers. The concluding couplet suggests that the beloved's identity and memory will live on in the eyes of lovers and ultimately be fully known; thus the poet values both the beloved's personal immortality and the lasting force of his own words. Together, love and poetry outlast time and death.
FAQs on NCERT Solutions - Not Marbles, Nor the Gilded Monuments
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