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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What two things are described as drifting above in the second stanza of "Sweeney Among the Nightingales"?

2. In "Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service", the masters of what sort of schools are considered controversial and polymath?

3. What do "these cogitations" sometimes "still amaze" in "La Figlia che Piange"?

4. What was the last name of "Cousin Nancy"?

5. What is the last phrase of "Rhapsody on a Windy Night"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the "Boston Evening Transcript" seem to symbolize in the poem of the same name?

2. Why is Sweeney uncomfortable in "Mr. Eliot's Sunday Morning Service"?

3. What is meant at the end of the "Journey of the Magi" by the magi saying that they found death when they encountered the Christ child?

4. Why does the speaker not want Pipit in Heaven in "A Cooking Egg"?

5. What does the reception of the viaticum in "Animula" do for the soul?

6. What is the significance of the "guardians of the faith" keeping watch upon the shelves in "Cousin Nancy"?

7. What characterizes the speech of the stuffed men in "The Hollow Men"?

8. What sort of life did the speaker of "Gerontion" live?

9. What is the tone of the speaker in "Morning at the Window" and why?

10. What is the tone of the speaker towards his life in "Rhapsody on a Windy Night", and how is this indicated in the poem?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Much of Eliot's poetry, particularly in the periods between 1925-1930, is considered to be related to the process of man's conversion from atheism to Christianity. Using several of Eliot's poems from this six year period, discuss the nature of this process in an analytical essay of careful consideration. What is a conversion? What sorts of things influence a man's conversion? How are these things described in Eliot's poems? What do such influential things offer that the rest of the world cannot? Why is such a conversion nonetheless difficult to make?

Essay Topic 2

Few poems, if any, have had as profound an impact on the world of poetry and literature as "The Waste Land", and yet its interpretation remains a subject of great dispute. In your own critical analysis, provide an interpretation of this complex and multi-layered poem. What is the significance of the major images and characters in the poem? What is meant by the often obscure and cryptic language? What is the relationship of the five parts to one another? What is the significance of the frequent inclusion of water as a symbolic figure in the poem? What is the overall, coherent signification of the poem?

Essay Topic 3

As one of Eliot's more controversial poems, "The Hippopotamus" is a commentary on religious belief and religious practice. Analyze and provide your own interpretation of this poem. What is the overall meaning of the poem? What are the individual parts which indicate this meaning? For what does the Hippopotamus within the poem stand? What is significant about the Hippopotamus' analogous portrayal? What is significant about the Church being referred to as the "True Church"? What is meant by the "old miasmal mist"?

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