Hi Everyone!! This article will share Wandering Singers Questions & Answers.
This poem is written by Sarojini Naidu. In my previous posts, I have shared the questions and answers of A Sea of Foliage, Homesickness, The Master Artist, Uncomfortable Bed and Maps Poem so, you can check these posts as well. I have also shared Wandering Singers Poem Summary so, make sure to check that post also.
Wandering Singers Questions & Answers
Question 1: The wandering singers have no permanent homes and families. Do they show any sadness about it? Or Do they have a different notion of family and home?
Answer: Although the wandering singers do not have any permanent home or family, they do not show any sadness about it. In the line ‘All men are kindred, the world is our home,’ the wandering singers tell us that they consider everyone their family and the whole world their home. So, they feel a bond with everyone and at home anywhere and everywhere.
Question 2: Which line tells us that the singers sing as they travel?
Answer: The line that tells us that the singers sing as they travel is ‘with lutes in our hands ever-singing we roam’.
Question 3: Why do the wandering singers not wait anywhere? Why do they keep traveling?
Answer: The wandering singers do not wait anywhere because no close ties or loving relationships make them stay on any particular place. Their happiness is not associated with a particular place where they might want to wait. Instead, the wind as it moves freely from one place to another, calling out to them to travel to one place one day and another place the next day. Their destinations keep changing, like the wind. So, they keep moving from one place to another.
Wandering Singers Questions & Answers
Question 4: What do the wandering singers sing about? What might their listeners get from their songs in terms of – (a) Knowledge (b) Mood?
Answer: The wandering singers sing about cities which were once great and famous, about the laughter and beauty of women who died long ago, old battles and kings of past, happy, simple and sad things.
(a) In terms of knowledge, listeners can learn something of history and folklore from the wandering singers ‘songs, as they sing of cities, battles, women and kings from the past.
(b) In terms of mood, the listeners can feel fascination, curiosity, admiration, sadness and excitement as they hear about cities that used to be grand, women who were happy and beautiful, battles that were bravely fought and kings who were great, but none of whom exist anymore.
Question 5: Tell us the rhyme scheme of the poem?
Answer: The rhyme scheme of this poem is aa bb cc dd ee ff.
Question 6: Why do you think the speaker uses, the words, ‘wander’ and ‘roam’ and not ‘march’?
Answer: The words ‘wander’ and ‘roam’ mean walk or move in a relaxed, unhurried manner, with no fixed purpose. The words ‘march’ and ‘stride’ mean to walk quickly with a purpose in a specific direction. The first two words have been used instead of the others because the wandering singers are never in a hurry, they have no fixed destination or place to reach. They move in a relaxed pace, going wherever they feel like going, free to change direction as often as the wind.
Question 7: In what person has this poem been written? Why the poet did not use ‘I’ or ‘they’?
Answer: This poem is written in first person plural – ‘we’. The poet did not use ‘I’ because the poem is about a group of wandering singers – not any specific group, but any or all wandering singers. She does not use ‘they’ because she wants it to seem as if the wandering singers are speaking to the reader directly, telling the readers their own story in their own words rather than someone else talking about the singers.
Question 8: What do the following lines mean?
(a) All men are our kindred, the world is our home.
Answer: All human-beings are like the extended family of the wandering singers and the world is their home.
(b) Where the voice of the wind calls our wandering feet.
Answer: They go where the voice of the wind calls them.
(c) What hope shall we gather, what dreams shall we sow?
Answer: Here the poetess tells us about their sadness related to their future. They do not stay at one place. So, they cannot gather hope and have dreams about their bright future.
(d) Our lays are of cities whose luster is shed.
Answer: Their songs are about the cities whose glory has faded now.
(e) The voice of the wind is the voice of our fate.
Answer:Â It means that the movements of wandering singers depend on the call of the wind.
So, these were Wandering Singers Questions & Answers.