Question

Rewrite these sentences in prose.
“And who art thou? said I to the soft-falling shower.”

Answer 1

Hint: This question is about the transformation of sentences from poetic schemes to prose form. The verse given above is taken from the poem “The Voice of Rain”. The poem is written by “Walt Whitman”. The poem is written by the poet in the form of a conversation between the poet and the rain. There are some direct dialogues as well as references in the poems describing the forever going journey of the rain. While transforming the sentences from a poetic perspective into a prose form, we usually use tools like “Direct-Indirect Speech”. Keep this in mind while answering these types of questions.

Complete answer:
The given dialogue is about the poet asking the rain who the rain was. The poet also used words from old English like “Art”, “Thou”. We can write it in a more direct and open form using the “Direct speech”. In the direct speech, there are two parts, one is the “Reporting clause” and the “Reported clause”. The former is the speaker and the latter is what the speaker is saying.

The answer of the given question can be found out as follows:
I said to the soft-falling shower, “who are you?”
Or
I said to the soft-falling shower, “And who are you?”

The form of language we used here is simple, direct and conventional. and at the same time, the meaning of the given statement remains the same.

Note: While answering these types of questions, the following tips can come in handy:
- Always focus on the language used and try to understand its meaning. Doing this can help you understand what the original writer is trying to say and hence, you can easily transform the sentence.
- Try to keep the meaning of the statements or sentences the same before and after the transformation. Changing the meaning can be considered wrong and the transformed sentence can not be associated with the original one.
- Instead of simply rewriting the sentence in your own words, try to capture the sense of the sentence as offered by the writer. Doing so will help you reach the required solution easily and correctly.