BSc BA ADP English Notes Poem One Art (Elizabeth Bishop) Important Questions

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Question No 1. What lesson do you draw from the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop? Is it worth learning at all?

Ans. The poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop is a deeply philosophic poem although it has been written in a light style. The poetess has a deep message to give us. She teaches us a lesson and this lesson is really worth learning. This is the lesson of bearing our harms and losses with patience and resignation. We can learn this great art by practice. If we lose a small thing today, we should not feel disturbed. We should try to take all the losses for granted. We should realize that finding and losing are two aspects of the same one reality. We should learn to endure what we cannot cure. Only then our life would be happily lived.

The poetess gives her own example to teach us that difficult lesson of life. She lost her door-keys. She lost her friends. She lost her time. She lost her possessions one by one. She lost ever her houses. She did not bother about all her losses! Now she is so much resigned that if she is going to lose her beloved, even then she would not bother at all. That is the height of contentment and resignation which the poetess preaches us to have.

Questions No 2. Bring out the literary merits of the poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop. Or Critical Appreciation of the Poem.

Ans. The poem "One Art" by Elizabeth Bishop is a thought provoking poem in which the poetess tries to teach us the lesson of contentment and resignation in a very polite, kind but ironic way. The sense of the poem is quite plain and straightforward but it has been presented in a satiric manner. The intention of the poetess is positive though it seems to be negative. She seems to teach us carelessness whereas she is teaching us the great value of resignation and contentment.

She says that the art of losing things is not difficult to learn. We can easily learn it because it is a part of the routine of life. We lose something almost every other day. If we stop bothering for the lost things, then we start learning the valuable lesson of contentment. We should, therefore, try to be peaceful if we lose keys of our doors, an hour, a house, a city, a river, a territory or kingdom or even a continent. If we learn the art of losing things (or, so to speak, the lesson of resignation and contentment) then we will not bother for even losing our most beloved things or persons.

The subject of the poem is related with human life and it is a valuable subject. It is related with philosophy as well as religion. Everything given to us by God is not our own but belongs to Him. So if He, at one time, takes his things back from us, we should not cry because it would be thanklessness to God. We should be resigned at our fate/luck and be contented at all the losses that we seemingly get during our life-time.

[The same thing has been preached (to us in Islam. Allah tells us to say whenever we get a loss of something or somebody:

Inna Lillahi Wa Inna Elihi Rajioon

which means that all of us are for Allah and to Him we shall return. It is the same lesson of contentment and resignation to our fate!]

But an important thing about the poem is that such a valuable and highly serious theme has been treated in a non-serious or ironic manner so that we should learn the lesson thinking it to be a very light and normal thing. The imagery has been taken from the common, daily routine of life. Door-keys, hour, house, city, kingdom, river, continent - are all practical and concrete images that bind us to our daily life. The theme has been presented in a didactic and has been written in epigrammatic style very popular with the Greek and Roman classical poets.

The poem has been composed in stanza form. The meter is iambic pentameter with a slight alteration, a syllable being added or left at the end of a few lines. Every stanza contains three lines except of the last one that has an additional line. The rhyme scheme of the stanzas is a b a with a b a a in the last stanza. The rhyme does not change with stanza. It is universal, i.e., line nos: 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18 and 19 are all rhymed a and the rest of all the lines are rhymed b. This art of rhyming is rather tedious but the poet has used it successfully. A few rhymes like "master" and "disaster" have been repeated but these do not create any monotony in the poem. Rather this repetition fills the poem with a sort of stress. Most of the lines are end-stopped but here and there we find enjambment as in lines 2-3 and 11-12.

The poem leaves a powerful influence on the readers/

Questions No 3. Do you agree with the poetess that the art of losing isn't hard to master? How can we master this art?

Ans. Actually the statement "The art of losing isn't hard to master" is a paradoxical one. On the outset it seems to be very correct and we believe in the poetess that particular art is really not hard to learn. But when we start practicing the art, then we come to know that it is perhaps the most difficult art to be learnt by man. Still, the zeal of the poetess to preach us this difficult art by treating the subject light-heartedly is really praiseworthy. She speaks to us in a sweet light vein in an attempt to teach us that difficult art. But so far as her details about mastering this art are concerned, these are altogether correct. She asks us to practice losing things. We can master the art by practice. First of all we should not bother if we lose little insignificant things like the keys of our doors or a lost and wasted hour or two. Then we should try our hand at more important things, such as places and names. Later on, we should still be peaceful at losing as costly and memorable things as our mother's watch.

Slowly and steadily we will grow perfect in this art like the poetess who never bothered to lose her last or second last house. She didn't bother even to remember whether it was her last or 2nd house that she lost! Then she lost two cities, a territory equal to kingdom, two rivers and a whole continent - i.e., she lost almost everything. Still she bore the loss patiently as she had mastered that art well. Later she became so habitual of contentment that she did not bother even the loss of her beloved. According to her, it is all a matter of habit and practice. We can master the art of losing by cultivating in us the habit of acceptance and resignation to our fate.

Question No 4. Bring out the elements of satire, humour and irony in the poem. How are they combined to achieve the impact by the poet?

Ans. According to Swift, "satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own, which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it."

According to Johnson, "irony is a mode of speech in which the meaning is contrary to the words." Humour is "associated with laughter and being used in contradistinction to wit" - says Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory by J. A. Cuddon.

Now that we have a clear idea as to what satire, humor and irony are, we can bring these out from the poem.

When we take the poem as a satire, we see other people (like the poetess) losing one thing after the other. We feel that we are very careful persons as we do not lose so many things. There are people losing even their time, their friends, their kingdoms and even their "beloveds". We also lose such things but we are not bold enough to confess that. This is what the satirical color of the poem means.

When we read about the poetess that she has lost so many things, we cannot help smiling because of the presence of humours elements in the poem. We can only laugh at a fellow who loses one thing after the other, who loses a house and even does not bother to remember whether that was her last or second-last house.

Then comes the irony. The poetess repeats a line again and again:

"The art of losing isn't hard to master." (lines 1. 6 & 12)

She repeats it again with a little variation in line 18:

"The art of losing's not too hard to master."

But actually she means to say that the art of losing things and remaining contented and resigned to fate is really very difficult to learn. It is not easy to lose one's friends (even one's beloved) and one's territories (even one's kingdom) and feel not disturbed. If we understand the element of irony and find it out that poetess is speaking in an ironic way, we are able to get hold of the real motto or moral lesson of the poem which is: Learn being patient in the face of all harms and losses. It is a difficult art but you must learn it!