Childhood - Part 2

22nd April, 2020
Day 2

Good morning gentlemen!
Its a beautiful day today. We are blessed to have been seeing another day in our lives. Let us pray to God to keep us all in His precious hands, forever and save us from the worries surrounding in this time of suffering.

Today, we will move ahead with the second part of the poem.
We will be dealing with the last two stanzas of the poem 'Childhood'. Along with this, we will also learn the poetic devices used in the poem.

Before we start with today's content, let us recall our learning objectives.


Learning Objectives
By the end of this poem, the students will be able to

Ø  understand, enjoy and appreciate different genre of English writings 

Ø   know about the poet and his contributions

Ø  enhance vocabulary

Ø   have better understanding of rhyme scheme and other poetic devices

Ø   know that Childhood is a bliss

Ø   think when and where has the childhood gone

Ø  know how childhood is innocence while maturity leads to individuality, rationalism and gaining understanding of hypocrisy

Let us begin.

When did my childhood go?
Was it when I found my mind was really mine,
To use whichever way I choose,
Producing thoughts that were not those of other people
But my own, and mine alone
Was that the day! 

As he grew up, the poet realised that his mind was unique, could form its own opinions and could take its own decisions. He gained a sense of individuality which set him free from the prejudiced opinions of others around him. His own experiences shaped his thoughts now and he realised that this might have been the time he lost his childhood innocence completely.

Where did my childhood go?
It went to some forgotten place,
That’s hidden in an infant’s face,
That’s all I know.

Word - Meaning

1) Infant – newborn baby 

In the final stanza, the poet changes his question. From wondering at what point in time, he had lost his childhood, the poet now wonders where it went.

The last three lines may be interpreted in two ways.

      

      1.    The poet claims that his childhood is nothing more than a long lost memory. He recalls his infancy and believes that his true childhood resides there, in that infant’s face, and that innocence cannot resurface in this lifetime.

2.    The poet believes that his childhood has become nothing more than a memory for him but has become the reality of some other infant. Innocence is a cyclical process where lost from one person, it travels to another, finding residence there. Thus, till date, adults can easily recall and seem to almost relive their own childhood, through an infant in their lives.

Poetic Devices used in the poem

1. Rationalism – the poet rationalizes the lost childhood when he was eleven and when he found out that hell and heaven don’t exist and are not found in the geography.

Was it the day I ceased to be eleven,
Was it the time I realised that Hell and Heaven,
Could not be found in Geography,

2. Refrain – a group of phrase which is repeated in the poem

When did my childhood go?
Was that the day!

3. Antithesis – where two opposite words are used together in a sentence in a poem 

Hell and Heaven

4. Alliteration – The occurrence of the same letter of sound at the beginning of closely connected words

My mind
Whichever way

5. Inversion – when the subject-verb order is reversed

To use whichever way I choose

Rhyming Scheme

The poet does not follow any particular rhyme scheme.  In the first stanza alone it has “ABBCCD”

The discussed points in today's and yesterday's blogs will help you in framing your ideas about the poem, and therefore, you are advised to copy the content in your notebooks for your future reference. 

We will be doing the multiple choice type questions and the short answer type questions in tomorrow's blog. 

Till then

Be safe

Take good care of yourselves. 

God bless you all!