A photograph summary

“This is a Photograph of Me” opens The Circle Game, Canadian writer Margaret Atwood’s 1964 collection of poetry. As the speaker of this The Circle Game, which centers female perspectives and experiences that have long been subsumed under male-dominated histories. The poem’s short, uneven lines and stanzas mirror the fragmented, ever-changing nature of history. • Where assonance appears in the poem: • Line 2: “seems,” “be” • Line 3: “smeared” • Line 4: “grey,” “flecks” • Line 5: “blended” • Line 6: “scan” • Line 7: “hand” • Line 8: “branch” • Line 15: “photograph,” “taken” • Line 16: “day,” “after” • Line 17: “lake,” “center” • Line 18: “the,” “picture,” “just,” “under,” “the,” “surface” • Line 25: “eventually” • Line 26: “be,” “see me” • Caesura Where caesura appears in the poem: • Line 4: “print: blurred” • Line 6: “then, as” • Line 7: “it, you” • Line 8: “branch: part” • Line 9: “spruce) emerging” • Line 10: “and, to,” “right, halfway” • Line 12: “slope, a” • Line 14: “that, some” • Line 17: “lake, in” • Line 18: “picture, just” • Line 20: “precisely, or” • Consonance Where consonance appears in the poem: • Line 1: “It,” “taken,” “time” • Line 2: “At,” “first,” “it,” “seems,” “to” • Line 3: “smeared” • Line 4: “print,” “blurred,” “lines,” “flecks” • Line 5: “blended” • Line 6: “scan” • Line 7: “see,” “hand,” “corner” • Line 8: “branch,” “part” • Line 9: “balsam,” “spruce” • Line 11: “what ought to,” “gentle” • Line 12: “slope,” “small,” “house” • Line 13: “lake” • Line 1...

• Class 6 • NCERT English • Class 7 • NCERT English • NCERT Social Science • Class 8 • NCERT English • NCERT Social Science • Class 9 • CBSE English • CBSE Social Science • Class 10 • CBSE English • CBSE Social Science • Class 11 • CBSE English • Class 12 • CBSE English • Grammar • 1st to 8th Grade • 9th & 10th Grade • 11th & 12th Grade • General English Grammar • Figures of Speech • Grammar Exercises • Toggle website search ❓ Still have doubts🤔questions ➡ Content Headlines • • • • • • • • Poem ‘A Photograph’ by Shirley Toulson The cardboard shows me how it was When the two girl cousins went paddling, Each one holding one of my mother’s hands, And she the big girl — some twelve years or so. All three stood still to smile through their hair At the uncle with the camera. A sweet face, My mother’s, that was before I was born. And the sea, which appears to have changed less, Washed their terribly transient feet. Some twenty — thirty — years later She’d laugh at the snapshot. “See Betty And Dolly,” she’d say, “and look how they Dressed us for the beach.” The sea holiday Was her past, mine is her laughter. Both wry With the laboured ease of loss. Now she’s been dead nearly as many years As that girl lived. And of this circumstance There is nothing to say at all. Its silence silences. Shirley Toulson Word Meanings of the Poem ‘A Photograph’ The meanings given here are explained in the context of the poem “A Photograph” by Shirley Toulson. Literal meanings may differ from their co...

“A Photograph” is the CBSE Class 11 English Hornbill Book poem. In this poem, the poet describes a photograph of his mother taken many years ago. In the poem “A Photograph” you will read the summary theme, and detailed explanation of the Poem stanza-wise along with meanings of difficult words to help you understand the poem better. Additionally, it includes a summary of the poem in Hindi and literary devices used to enhance the meaning of the poem. Inside Story • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • About the poet: Shirley Toulson Shirley Toulson, source: Wikipedia Toulson had a passion for poetry and started writing at a young age. Her works often focused on themes of love, nature, and human emotions. In addition to poetry, Toulson also wrote several books and articles on travel and history. She passed away on 23 September 2018, leaving behind a legacy of beautiful poetry and literature. Theme of the poem: A photograph class 11 The theme of the poem “ A Photograph” is how transient and mortal human life is, it reflects the pain of separation and how people after death are vividly present in the memories of their loved ones. A photograph class 11: central idea The central idea of the poem “A Photograph” by Shirley Toulson is the transient nature of life and the passage of time, as reflected through memories captured in a photograph. The poem explores how time changes everything, including people, memories, and circumstances, and how memories can endure even in the...

“A Photograph,” a poem by the English writer Shirley Toulson, describes the adult speaker’s discovery of a photograph showing her mother, at that time a girl, and some even younger cousins swimming during a holiday at the sea. At the time the picture was taken, the speaker’s mother was “the big girl,” roughly twelve years old (4), and the picture shows her holding the hands of the two younger girls as they swim. The photo shows all three girls smiling for the camera, and the speaker fondly recalls how her mother, in her thirties or forties, later looked at the picture and laughed at the way she and her cousins were dressed. Now the speaker, looking at the picture herself, ponders the fact that her mother has been dead for roughly twelve years—about as long as the young girl in the picture had at that point lived. Clearly one theme of Toulson’s poem is mutability, or change. The picture records a time in the distant past; the speaker recalls a time in the more recent past; and then the speaker finally comments on the present, when her mother has been dead for roughly twelve years. The poem is thus a meditation on the passing of time and also on the fact of loss, especially the mother’s loss of her youth and the speaker’s loss of her mother. Yet the poem can also be seen as a response to, and minor victory over, such loss. Just as the photograph records the past so that the past still, in some sense, exists, so the poem itself records both the photograph and the responses to...

history of photography, method of photos (“light”) and graphein (“to draw”), was first used in the 1830s. This article treats the historical and see see General considerations As a means of visual The essential elements of the image are usually established immediately at the time of exposure. This characteristic is unique to photography and sets it apart from other ways of picture making. The seemingly automatic recording of an image by photography has given the process a sense of authenticity shared by no other picture-making technique. The photograph possesses, in the popular mind, such apparent accuracy that the This understanding of photography’s supposed objectivity has dominated evaluations of its role in the arts. In the early part of its history, photography was sometimes belittled as a mechanical art because of its dependence on Get a Britannica Premium subscription and gain access to exclusive content. The most important control is, of course, the creative photographer’s vision. He or she chooses the vantage point and the exact moment of exposure. The photographer perceives the essential qualities of the subject and interprets it according to his or her judgment, taste, and involvement. An effective photograph can Inventing the medium Antecedents

Gujarat Board Gujarat Board Textbook Solutions Class 11 English Hornbill Poem 1 A Photograph GSEB Class 11 English A Photograph Text Book Questions and Answers Think it Out Question 1. What does the word ‘cardboard’ denote in the poem? Why has this word been used? Answer: The word cardboard denotes the photograph pasted on a hard thick paper. This word has been used to refer to a practice in the past when photographs were pasted on cardboard and framed with glass front to preserve them. Question 2. What has the camera captured? Answer: The camera has captured the three girls -the poet’s mother and her two cousins, Betty and Dolly, in their swimming dresses with the poet’s mother in the middle and the two cousins on either side holding her hands and walking five feet in seawater. Question 3. What has not changed over the years? Does this suggest something to you? Answer: The sea has not changed over the years. Its waves are as fresh, shining and tireless as they were years ago. The changelessness of sea reminds us of the changes in human face with advancing age. Question 4. The poetess’s mother laughed at the snapshot? What did this laugh indicate? Answer: This laugh indicated her joy at remembering an incident connected with her past life when she was quite young and free from the tensions and worries of life. Question 5. What is the meaning of the line “Both wry with the laboured ease of loss”? Answer: The sea holiday and the laughter of the poet’s mother are incidents of...

A brief introduction to the poem: A Photograph is a poem by British poet Shirley Toulson. Prescribed in classes 11 & 12 (India), the poem has become popular because students have to study it. The poem essentially is about the inevitable passage of time and the course of nature that does not change ever. The poet remembers her mother by looking at the photograph that has grown old itself. Youth, strength, and power – everything passes as time flies. Time is permanent and everything else is temporary. The poet notices her mother at a young age who went on a ‘sea holiday’ with two other girls and got a photograph clicked in which the three young girls were smiling and because of the wind, their hair flew. After many years, the uncle who clicked the image died, the poet’s mother died, and many things changed. The sea, however, changed very less, if at all it changed. In short, nothing in the universe is permanent except the universe itself. Keep reading for a critical analysis, full summary, and line-by-line explanation of the poem. At the end of this article, you will also find an essential introduction to the poet Shirley Toulson. Please go through the article thoroughly. Summary of the poem A Photograph by Shirley Toulson: Written in 19 lines, the book version (CBSE English) has three stanzas of 9-6-4 lines and some versions have 19 lines straight. The poem does not follow any rhyme scheme or lyrical pattern. And therefore, the style of the poem is Free Verse. Coming to the...

The poem A Photograph is written by Shirley Toulson in the memory of her dead mother. In the poem, the poet sees a photograph of her mother and goes into reminiscence. She remembers when her mother used to tell her about that photograph and would miss her youth. In the end, the poet feels sad because of the loss of her mother. So, there the poem is pessimistic and deals with the theme of loss. In order to understand, I have divided the poem into four parts. Poem Part 1 The cardboard shows me how it was When the two girl cousins went paddling Each one holding one of my mother’s hands, And she the big girl - some twelve years or so. The poet says that she happens to look at an old photograph of her mother which has a cardboard frame. In the photo there are three people, two of them are cousins of the poet and the third one is her mother. They had gone for paddling (swimming). In the photo both cousins have held poet mother’s hands . Poet calls her mother as big girl . who was approximately twelve years old then. Now, in the this stanza, we find symbols and images. The first image is cardboard. In old times, the photos were framed in cardboards. With time, the cardboard also gets old and thus it symbolises past time. Next, the girl cousins are holding the hands of poet’s mother which depicts motherly nature towards them. Part 2 All three stood still to smile through their hair At the uncle with the camera, A sweet face My mother’s, that was before I was born And the sea, whic...