THE SCHOLAR GYPSY – ARNOLD

THE SCHOLAR GYPSY – ARNOLD

·         It is a poem by Arnold, based on a 17^th century Oxford story found in Joseph Glanvill’s The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), which he read often.

·         It begins in pastoral mode, invoking a shepherd and describing the beauties of a rural scene, with Oxford in the distance.

·         It is an attack on scholasticism.

·         The various places and landmarks mentioned in the poem are all actual ones situated around oxford.

·         It is written in a modern style.

·         Scholar gypsy left the university because of poverty.

·         He left the university in a morning of a summer.

·         Arnold describes the story of an Oxford student Glanvill.

·         He left his university and joined a band of gypsies.

·         He came from them many of the secrets about the trade.

·         Many were not certain about his whereabouts.

·         But some time he was discovered and recognized by two of his former Oxford associates, who learned from him that the gypsies “had a traditional kind of learning among them, and could do wonders by the power of imagination, their fancy binding that of others”.

·         When he had learned everything that the gypsies could teach him, he said, he would leave them and give an account of these secrets to the world.

·         The flower mentioned in the poem is Convolvulus.

·         The punt or ferry boat is pulled across the stream by a rope and the boat moves in a kind of curve.

·         Why did scholar join the gypsies? To learn their knowledge..

·         With whom contacts  the poet bids him avoid while addressing the scholar? Moderns.

·         In “the just pausing genius”, we have an allusion to? indian mythology.

·         Arnold says that the scholar is waiting for? The spark of the heaven.

·         When did the scholar return oxford? He returned no more.

·         When did the scholar want to impart the secret of the art of Gypsies? After learning the art fully.

·         What did the scholar give to the woman he met? Flowers.

·         Maidens from distant helmets have seen the scholar in the fields in the month? May.

·         The scholar Gypsy is compared to? Tyrian trader.

·         “the young light hearted masters of wave” – this phrase refers to? Greek.

·         The Scholar Gypsy was born when? Wits were fresh and clear.

·         The scholar gypsy is a pastoral elegy. What are the pastoral landscape described in the poem? Oxford country side, Thames and Cummer Hills.

·         Whose life ran as sparkling Thames? The Scholar Gypsy.

·         Arnold attacked the life of? Moderns.

·         Arnold wants us through the poem? Follow the path of scholar Gypsy.

·         In which line we can find Homeric simile? Averse as Dido did with gesture stern.

·         It is written in the metre of Iambic penta metre.

·         This poetry is the criticism of life.