Prescribed Poetry: Poets, Figures of Speech, and Interpretation
The prescribed poetry section tests recognition (poet, poem, occasion) alongside interpretation (theme, tone, imagery, figures of speech). Because Santhali poetry grew out of oral song, the prescribed poems usually sit inside a festival or ritual setting, and that setting is the fastest route into the meaning.
Poet and period
The central figure is Raghunath Murmu, whose songs and plays gave modern Santhali literature both a script and a written repertoire; his work is devotional-communal in tone and often addresses the community directly. Regional Santhali poets of the Brahmaputra valley appear in Assamese board anthologies, writing on tea-garden labour, language loss and the Jaher Than. Attach each poem to a named poet and a known occasion rather than writing 'the poet' throughout.
Figures you must be able to name and prove
upama (simile) - comparison with a marker such as leka ('like'); rupaka (metaphor) - comparison without the marker; anuprasa (alliteration); punarukti (repetition of word or line, the signature device of Santhali song); utpreksha (personifying a hill, river or flower); atishayokti (hyperbole); pratik (symbol - baha the flower, buru the hill, jaher the sacred grove).
Interpreting tone
Refrains set the keynote; a repeated line after each stanza is the emotional anchor, not filler. State the tone in one adjective (joyous, elegiac, defiant) and justify it from the refrain.
Worked example
Question: 'Identify the figure in the repeated line and explain its effect.' Answer: 'The line repeats the same words with the same initial consonant - punarukti reinforced by anuprasa. The effect is incantatory: the repetition imitates the chorus of a Baha song and fixes the flower image as a symbol of renewal.'
Traps
Naming a figure with no proof; confusing punarukti with anuprasa; summarising the poem and stopping; ignoring the refrain; writing 'beautiful poem' instead of naming a tone.