128. AltE HS2ndYr- The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk (10)

1. What did the poet survey?

Ans: The poet surveyed the lone island and the sea around him. 

2. Why did the poet remember the sages?

Ans: The poet was all alone and thought of the sages who found charm and happiness in the lonely island. 

3. How does the poet describe the island in the second stanza?

Ans: The island is no man’s land. It is out of human’s reach. There are only beasts and birds on the island. 

4. What are the divine qualities bestowed upon man?

Ans: Society, friendship, and love are the qualities that are bestowed upon man. 

5. Why does the poet like the wisdom of age?

Ans: The poet can learn wise things from his wisdom of age and he could spend his days of youth happily. 

6. What is the poet’s prayer to the ‘winds’?

Ans: The poet prays the winds to bring some good news from his place. He might never be able to return to his place so he wishes to send some message from the winds. He further requests the winds to convey his message of loneliness to his friends whom he might never see again. 

7. Why does the poet say that “the tempest itself lags behind”?

Ans: The poet says that ‘the tempest itself lags behind” because he knows that the strong mind is swift and it can cross the tempest.

8. Who was Alexander Selkirk?

Ans:- Alexander Selkirk was a Scottish Privateer and Royal Navy officer who spent four years and four months as a castaway after being marooned by his Captain. He was born in UK in 1676 and died in Ghana in 1721.

9. What is the central theme of the poem “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk”?

Ans:- The central theme of the poem “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk” is loneliness resulting from a lack of human connection. Ruling over a deserted island is little consolation to speaker Selkirk. He yearns for “Society, Friendship, and Love,” which he cannot find while marooned on an island in complete isolation.

10. Write the summary.

Ans:- William Cowper’s poem “The Solitude of Alexander Selkirk” imagines the regretful musings of Alexander Selkirk, a hotheaded Scottish sailor who was marooned—by choice—on an island off Chile in 1704. After arguing with his ship’s captain, Selkirk asked to be left on the island and was stranded there alone for more than four years.

     Cowper’s poem conveys the theme of loneliness, specifically of a person isolated from other humans. At the beginning , the speaker (Selkirk) appears to celebrate his power over his terrain and its creatures:

I am monarch of all I survey;

My right there is none to dispute;

From the centre all round to the sea

I am lord of the fowl and the brute.

     The reader soon realizes that this opening is ironic and not celebratory. Although Selkirk rules over his piece of land without any challenger or argument, he reveals that he is “lord” only over birds and other animals and where are other people.

     Selkirk immediately answers this question in the second half of the first stanza:

O Solitude! where are the charms

That sages have seen in thy face?

Better dwell in the midst of alarms,

Than reign in this horrible place.

     He is completely alone and miserable! He would rather live humbly in a place filled with anxiety and noise than rule over “this horrible place,” the island on which he is trapped.

     Selkirk then expands on this theme of isolation by emphasizing what his life lacks: contact with mankind. He is “out of humanity’s reach” and yearns to hear the “sweet music of speech” from others. In fact, because he has no person with whom to speak and he has not heard another human talk in so long, he has become accustomed to silence. Therefore, when he does speak, he says, “I start at the sound of my own (voice).”

     Although he is surrounded by nature and animals, he does not find comfort in them. He cannot converse with animals; they have become so used to him that they observe him with “indifference.” What he misses the most are

Society, Friendship, and Love

Divinely bestow'd upon man,

Oh had I the wings of a dove

How soon would I taste you again!

If he had the power to flee the island somehow—fly like a dove, since he cannot swim the distance to civilization—he would be able to experience social relationships, connections, and love, all of which he views as gifts from God. Having foolhardily commanded the captain to leave him on the island, in real life, the impetuous Selkirk regretted his actions when he realized that no other men were joining him on the island. Perhaps Selkirk is contrite and admits the errors of his juvenile ways when he says,

My sorrows I then might assuage

In the ways of religion and truth,

Might learn from the wisdom of age,

And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth.

     The theme of loneliness and isolation is further emphasized by his poignant and futile desire to know how his loved ones are and if they even remember him. He wishes that the winds that batter him would

Convey to this desolate shore

Some cordial endearing report

Of a land I shall visit no more.

My friends, do they now and then send

A wish or a thought after me?

O tell me I yet have a friend,

Though a friend I am never to see.

Selkirk is quite self-pitying and fatalistic, as shown through hyperboles like “visit no more” and “never to see.” He laments that he has no friends and that his friends in his faraway, unattainable homeland may no longer think about him or his existence. Has his identity been erased? Is he “out of sight, out of mind” to others?

    Cowper concludes the poem with Selkirk being pulled back to the grim reality of his situation after reminiscing about his “native land.” The sailor returns to his cabin to rest, reconciled to “his lot."