Read the following poem by Christina Rossetti (1872):
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.
In the second stanza, the phrase 'the trees bow down their heads' functions primarily to do which of the following?
- personify the trees to make the invisible force of the wind visible and activeAnswer
- Blabel the trees' movement as personification to prove the speaker is using figurative language
- Cprovide a literal, botanical description of how wind affects the physical structure of branches
- Dreveal the poet's personal, biographical memories of trees in her childhood home
- Eindicate a dramatic shift in the poem's tone from quiet curiosity to absolute dread
Answer
personify the trees to make the invisible force of the wind visible and active
The correct answer identifies that the personification of the trees ('bow down their heads') functions to represent the active, physical influence of the otherwise invisible wind. By attributing human movement and anatomy to the trees, the poem gives concrete shape to the wind's presence.
Step-by-Step Solution
Key Concept
Using personification to reveal abstract or invisible forces through concrete actions