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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. At what door might the speaker of "Eyes that last I saw in tears" see the eyes again?
(a) The door of death's dream kingdom.
(b) The door of death's other kingdom.
(c) The door of life's long hall.
(d) The door of dreaming.

2. The enemy in "Lines for an Old Man" is said to be dangling from what?
(a) The fruited tree.
(b) The vicious tree.
(c) The friendly tree.
(d) The hanging tree.

3. How many of the characters are women in the fragment of a prologue?
(a) Four.
(b) Nine.
(c) Two.
(d) Six.

4. In the fourth Landscape, which of the following does the road NOT wind?
(a) Langour of broken steel.
(b) Clamour of confused wrong.
(c) Listlessness of ancient war.
(d) Anger of ignored cry.

5. What is not more still than when the speaker of "Lines for an Old Man" smells "the enemy"?
(a) The whipping tail.
(b) The duck's wobbling head.
(c) The palpitations of the heart.
(d) The writhing fool.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who wonders at the tree in "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees"?

2. What object in "Fragments of an Aristophanic Melodrama" is related to a coffin?

3. Of what does the first coming remind "us" in "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees"?

4. What reality does the poem attempt to convey behind the impressive display of the "Triumphal March"?

5. How many male voices speak in the third chorus of 'The Rock'?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the significance of the final landscape, "Cape Ann"?

2. How do love and desire contrast with one another in "Burnt Norton"?

3. What is the "conscious art practiced with natural ease" of which Eliot writes in "To Walter de la Mare"?

4. What characterizes the metaphors used as description of the old man bearing the "tooth of wit" in "Lines for an Old Man"?

5. What is implied by the repetition of the phrase "meaning / Death," in reference to the various stages of life's enjoyment in "Marina"?

6. Why do the "cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries," spoken of in the first chorus from 'The Rock,' bring man further away from God and closer to dust?

7. What is meant in "Burnt Norton" by the phrase, "Only a flicker / Over the strained time-ridden faces / Distracted from distraction by distraction"?

8. What does Sweeney primarily describe in the "Fragment of an Agon"?

9. What is a possible interpretation of the significance of the "Midwinter spring" described in Part I of "Little Gidding"?

10. How was the speaker awoken in "The wind sprang up at four o'clock"?

(see the answer keys)

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