Introduction
Animals Class 10 is a nice poem. The summary of this article is about animals. The author of this poem is Walt Whitman. From his collection “Song of Myself” in the Leaves of Grass, comes the poem Animals. Walt Whitman praises animals in this poem for being superior to people. The poet aspires to coexist with animals, live in a world without complaints, and see what it is like to be free from sin and misery.
This article will make it easy for the students to understand the chapter. The article further explains each paragraph of the poem for a better understanding. It will also help them with quick revision. For the sake of the students’ simple comprehension, the author has described each and every line of the poem in depth. During test time, they can also use the synopsis to quickly comprehend the poetry.
Animals Class 10 Summary
Walt Whitman skillfully highlights the differences between animals and people in this poem. Animals often have a basic nature, but humans tend to be exceedingly complex, greedy, and selfish. He is really content with animals’ laid-back demeanor and wants to imitate them.
They are smart, so they never moan about their lot in life or state of affairs. They don’t mourn their transgressions, and they don’t give a damn about God’s worship. They never lack happiness and do not require material possessions. They show no regard for anybody, not even their forefathers, and they show no emotion for either happiness or suffering. The poet specifically wants to learn from animals because of this.
They don’t hold any sort of fabrication. They are still leading their normal lives since they aren’t burdened by any kind of unimportant worries. According to the poet, humanity once likely possessed all the traits like serenity, a lack of hunger, and the capacity for happiness, but they have since lost them. Walt Whitman has so put a pedagogical message before humans in this poem.
Animals Class 10 stanza-wise explanation
Stanza 1
The author opens the poem by expressing a desire to transform into an animal and dwell among them. He claims that, in contrast to humans, animals are at ease and content in their environment. After standing and taking a good long look at them, he realizes how happy and self-sufficient they are. He is taken aback by their serenity and mental rigor. The lives of animals seem to be happy ones. The poet stands and takes a good long look at them.
Stanza 2
The poet is really taken aback by the fact that animals do not whine and lament about their circumstances as people do. They quietly eat and sleep with nothing to worry about. Unlike humans, animals are clean and do not pray God for forgiveness or to grant their wishes. They don’t complain or lament about their situation or spend the entire night sobbing over all the wrongs that have occurred.
Unlike people who act in ways to impress God, they are constantly content and carry out their obligations. Animals always exhibit love and respect for people and live happy, peaceful lives. Like humans, they don’t waste time talking about what they owe to God.
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Stanza 3
Another trait shared by animals is their disbelief in kneeling down to one another, even if the person is far older than them. They hold the view that everyone is equal, regardless of their age. They simply believe in enjoying the present moment without giving a thought to their social standing.
The poet has critiqued how people bow to one another based on their age as well as how they go about their daily lives taking the thoughts of society into consideration. Animals, according to the poet, are admirable because they are transparent with their emotions.
They will remain true to them even if they must eat another animal. Humans are known to pretend to feel things. Even when they are with individuals they don’t like, they behave properly. The poet claims in the final few lines that it appears as though animals now possess all the positive traits that people previously did. The love, generosity, humility, and honesty that the animals are currently picking up must have been dumped carelessly by the humans.
Stanza 4
In the final two lines of “Animals,” Whitman speculates as to how they came to possess those tokens. He makes the implication that he may have dropped them carelessly or recklessly in the past. It implies that he was a member of their world in the past. The tie that united them has been severed by time’s alteration of him.
After spending many years in the human world, he came to understand that this world did not reflect his nature. He proudly declares his allegiance to the animal kingdom because of this.
In the last line, the poet ponders how humans lost their capacity for love, tranquillity, gentleness, selflessness, honesty, patience, and empathy, and how they managed to pass these traits on to animals. These are the principles that people previously had but have since lost.
Animal Class 10 About the Author
On May 31, 1819, in New York, an American poet, essayist, and journalist named Walt Whitman was born. American poet Walt Whitman was well-known and is frequently referred to as the “Father of Free Verse.” Leaves of Grass, his most well-known poetry book, was initially published in 1855 using his own funds. The project represented an effort to connect with average people. Whitman continued to add to this work up until his death from illness in 1892.
Animal Class 10 Word Meaning
Contained: Keep under control
Placid: Calm, peaceful
Sins: The wrong done by individuals
Whine: To cry
Demented: disturbed
Evince: reveal or show
Kneels: to bow down
Possession: the ownership of something
Negligently: in a careless manner
Animal Class 10 Poetic Device
Tokens are employed as a metaphor in this sentence to describe human nature.
Enjambment: The sentence continues uninterrupted until the next line.
II.I. No one bows down to another person or to someone of his kind who lived thousands of years ago.
II.II. They send me signs of myself, they demonstrate them obviously in their possession.
Hyperbola: “Lived thousands of years ago” indicates the use of hyperbola
Metonymy: the words like “sweat” are used to denote the cause of sweating which is tension in lines 2-3.
Animals Class 10 rhyme scheme
No particular rhyme scheme has been followed in the poem.
Animals Class 10 Question and Answers
Q1. Notice the use of the word ‘turn’ in the first line, “I think I could turn and live with animals…”. What is the poet turning from?
Ans: – The poet is turning away from a life surrounded by others. He prefers living with animals since he believes them to be calmer and more independent.
Q2. Mention three things that humans do and animals don’t.
Ans: – People lament their woes and sorrows by crying and griping.
Humans lie awake at night contemplating their transgressions.
People frequently talk about their religious beliefs and obligations to God.
These are 3 things that humans.
Q3. Do humans kneel to other humans who lived thousands of years ago? Discuss this in groups.
Ans: – Humans do really bow down to their ancestors who lived thousands of years ago. They might be religious figures they follow such as preachers, saints, or ancestors. They revere them and adhere to their teachings.
Q4. What are the ‘tokens’ that the poet says he may have dropped long ago, and which the animals have kept for him? Discuss this in class. (Hint: Whitman belongs to the Romantic tradition that includes Rousseau and Wordsworth, which holds that civilisation has made humans false to their own true nature. What could be the basic aspects of our nature as living beings that humans choose to ignore or deny?)
Ans: – According to the poet, the word tokens refer to the positive traits of people. The poet believes that positive traits are no longer present in people nowadays. They have lost them in order to pursue material goals that they will stop at nothing to accomplish.
In conclusion, the poem as a whole is about the expansion of human want and avarice. According to the poet, people were decent, honest, and innocent at the dawn of time. But all of those qualities have now been lost. On the other hand, it seems that those traits have been preserved in animals.