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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. Whom does the speaker claim is inane in "Conversation Galante"?

2. Which of the following is used in Part I of "The Hollow Men" as a metaphor for the "dried voices" of the hollow men whispering to one another?

3. Which two "guardians of the faith" kept watch upon the shelves?

4. To what do the "lips that would kiss" in Part III of "The Hollow Men" form prayers?

5. Who in "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" "declines the gambit, shows fatigue"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the significance of the two stanzas concerned with Donne in "Whispers of Immortality"?

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

3. What is a possible interpretation of the "notion of some infinitely gentle / Infinitely suffering thing" described near the end of the "Preludes"?

4. How has Simeon passed his life, as described in "A Song for Simeon"?

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

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

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

8. How does Mr. Apollinax contrast with his hosts?

9. What is the meaning of the phrase in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" , "I have measured out my life with coffee spoons"?

10. For what does Simeon hope in his encounter with the Christ child?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

In the third part of "Four Quartets - Burnt Norton" is a line which reads, "Distracted from distraction by distraction." This line has often been quoted in reference to the condition of the modern world. Evaluate the meaning of this statement, within the context of both the particular section in which it is found, the poem in which it is a part, and the society which it describes, in a well-thought-out analytical essay. What are man's distractions? Why is he distracted from them? How is man distracted in modernity? What sort of things distract him? How is this idea fleshed out in the third part of "Burnt Norton"? How is it further fleshed out in the poem as a whole? What does this distracted condition indicate about human nature and the human condition in the modern world?

Essay Topic 2

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"?

Essay Topic 3

Prominent in Eliot's poetry is the temporal, ephemeral nature of the physical world. Analyze this theme in a critical essay. What is time? How is the world temporal? What is the effect of the passing nature of the world upon the human person? What does this reveal about the human person? What does the human person's involvement with time reveal about the nature of time?

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