ENGLISH LITERATURE (CBSE/UGC NET)

Detailed explanation-1: -Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Detailed explanation-2: -In Shelley’s view, human songs lack the spontaneous joy which the bird’s song possesses, and consequently man fails to sing as rapturously as the bird. This is because man can never be truly happy. His joy of the present is shadowed by the memory, sad or sweet, of the past, and the fear of uncertainty about the future.

Detailed explanation-3: -Alliteration means the repetition of the same sound or same letter at either the beginning or the end of words that are placed adjacent to each other or in very close proximity. In the line, Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thoughts-s and t occur thrice and four times.

Detailed explanation-4: -“Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought.” Of saddest thought.” “Music, when soft voices die, vibrates in the memory.”

Detailed explanation-5: -The central theme in “To a Skylark” is the power of nature. Shelley primarily uses water imagery to convey this concept. There are descriptions of literal rain, such as “vernal showers” (Line 56) that fall on “rain-awakened flowers” (Line 58).