| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | This poem is about a boy who has been given a magnifying glass. He is intrigued by it and wants to share his discoveries. The monkeys in a cage in a public park look like possible learners. |
| Can you remember wanting to tell someone about something you had just learnt or found out how to do? Briefly tell what you did. | |
| During reading | |
| 2. | What mistake does the boy make when he tries to share his knowledge? |
| 3. | Why do you think the speaker refers to a “burning-glass” and not a magnifying glass? |
At Woodward’s gardens
Robert Frost
A boy, presuming on his intellect,
Once showed two little monkeys in a cage
A burning-glass they could not understand
And never could be made to understand.
Words are no good: to say it was a lens
For gathering solar rays would not have helped,
But let him show them how the weapon worked.
He made the sun a pinpoint on the nose
Of first one, then the other, till it brought
A look of puzzled dimness to their eyes
That blinking could not seem to blink away.
They stood arms laced together at the bars,
And exchanged troubled glances over life.
One put a thoughtful hand up to his nose
As if reminded – as if perhaps
Within a million years of an idea.
He got his purple little knuckles stung.
The already known had once more been confirmed
By psychological experiment,
And that were all the finding to announce
Had the boy not presumed too close and long.
There was a sudden flash of arm, a snatch
And the glass was the monkeys’ not the boy’s.
Precipitately they retired back-cage
And instituted an investigation
On their part, though without the needed insight.
They bit the glass and listened for the flavour.
They broke the handle and the binding off it.
Then none the wiser, frankly gave it up,
And having hid it in their bedding straw
Against the day of prisoners’ ennui
Came dryly forward to the bars again
To answer for themselves:
Who said it mattered
What monkeys did or didn’t understand?
They might not understand a burning-glass.
They might not understand the sun itself.
It’s knowing what to do with things that counts.
prisoners’ ennui – animals in cages, like humans in prison, become bored
presuming on his intellect – overconfident about his knowledge
| Post-reading | |
| 4. | Monkeys are in some ways like young children. How they go about trying to understand new objects. |
| 5. | When the boy uses his magnifying glass to “create a pinpoint of the sun” on the nose of each of the monkeys, he is not trying to hurt them. |
| a) | What is he trying to do? |
| b) | How do the knuckles on the paw of one of the monkeys get burnt? |
| 6. | The speaker uses hyperbole (exaggeration) to describe how long it would take for a monkey to understand a scientific concept. Quote the phrase that he uses. |
| 7. | The poem is not mainly about monkeys. What is the main point of the poem? Reread the first four lines and the last four lines before you answer. |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | Why do people build walls? |
| During reading | |
| 2. | The poem refers to physical walls but it also refers to another kind of wall that people construct. What do the two kinds of walls have in common? |
Walls
Oswald Mbuyiseni Mtshali
Man is
a great wall builder
the Berlin Wall
the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem
but the wall
most impregnable
has a moat
flowing with fright
around his heart.
A wall
without windows
for the spirit
to breeze through
A wall
without a door
for love to walk in.
impregnable – cannot be broken through
moat – a wide, deep trench filled with water built around a castle’s walls so that even the walls cannot be reached by attackers.
| Post-reading | |
| 3. | The speaker describes man as a “great” wall builder. |
| a) | Is this meant as a compliment or not? |
| b) | Give some reasons why men might need (or think that they need) to build walls that cannot be climbed over. |
| 4. | The first wall mentioned in this poem is the high wall guarded by soldiers in towers that was built by the Soviet Russian-aligned East Berlin in 1961.Its purpose was to keep its citizens in and those of the western-aligned other half of the city, West Berlin, out. It then became almost impossible for people in the same city, even from the same family, to see each other. Look at the illustration. Why does the speaker use this as an example of man’s frightening ability to keep people apart? |
| 5. | The Wailing Wall of Jerusalem is what is left of the foundations of the Temple after the Romans demolished it to demonstrate their power in the year 70. It is not strictly a wall. However, it is a very special site to religious Jews. And it is a site argued over fiercely between Palestine and Israel. How has it become a “wall”? |
| 6. a) | What is the “wall most impregnable”? |
| b) | What are its three characteristics? Explain these in your own words and consider their advantages and disadvantages |
| c) | Why do human beings sometimes build walls with no doors round their hearts? Use your imaginations and your own experience in answering this question. |
| Pre-reading | |
| 1. | What
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