One Art – A New Anthology of English Poetry Notes

Q. No. 01: – Do you agree with the poetess that the art of losing is not hard to master, how we can master in this art?

Answer: –      

The poem “One Art” trains us the art of losing things. The true art of losing will produce in us patience and spirit of acceptation. She says that the art of losing things is not difficult ot learn. We can easily learn it because it is a part of routine life. We lose something almost everyday. We are often disturbed at our losses. The writer advises us that we should stop bothering for the lost things. In this way, we can learn the lesson of contentment. We should accept life with all its pains, problems and hardships.

First of all we should get used to losing small things. Later on, we should try to lose costly and big things. We should bear the lose of different things with brave heart. In order to be master in the art of losing, we should must lose one thing daily. We should not feel restless at the loss of door keys or time badly spent. This will save us from heavy disaster.

The poetess gives us her own example in this regard. She bore the loss of things with a brave heart. She happened to lose her mother’s watch. She lost three houses. But she was not disturbed at it. She lived in two cities. They were very dear to her. She had to lose two rivers, a Kingdom and a continent. She missed them greatly. But she was not disturbed at it. It was not great lose to her. She was even prepared to lose the friendship of her lover. How she was ready to lose everything. It seemed to be a very difficult thing to her. But she had developed the art of the losing things.

The subject of the poem is related with human life. It is related with philosophy as well as religion. Every thing given to us by God is not our own but belong to Him.