Whose ancient crooked will is meant? The will of the devil in ...

[acc299]

Whose ancient crooked will is meant? The will of the devil in perverselydesigning the donkey, or the donkeys own venerable stubbornness?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

To what prehistoric era does Chesterton refer in lines 13?
 
  What will be an ideal response?

[tandmlomax84]

Answer to Question 1

• Were not certain. What do your students think?

Answer to Question 2

• To the original chaos out of which the world was made. The poet apparently imagines it in bizarre dreamlike imagery: fish with wings, walking forests, fig-bearing thorn. Chesterton was fascinated by the book of Genesis because of its beginning in chaos, comments Garry Wills in his introduction to a reprint edition of Chestertons novel of 1908, The Man Who Was Thursday (New York: Sheed, 1975). The novel hints at a playful God who enjoys returning things to chaos every now and then. Writing about that world of dream in a newspaper article in 1904, Chesterton remarked, A world in which donkeys come in twos is clearly very near to the wild ultimate world where donkeys are made.