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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 do people enjoy about marches like the one described in the "Triumphal March"?

2. Who, in the eighth chorus of 'The Rock,' is said to have spoken of the shame of Jerusalem?

3. In what kingdom is the speaker of "The wind sprang up at four o'clock"?

4. How many conditions that "often look alike / Yet differ completely" does the speaker discuss in Part III of "Four Quartets: Little Gidding"?

5. Where is the speaker at the end of "Four Quartets: East Coker" according to Part I?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does it mean to be "redeemed from fire by fire" as stated in the fourth part of "Little Gidding"?

2. What characterizes the tone of the poem in "Triumphal March"?

3. What is the tone of the five parts of the "Five-Finger Exercises" and how is this indicated?

4. About what is the speaker confused in "The wind sprang up at four o'clock"?

5. What characterizes the tone of the poem in "Difficulties of a Statesman"?

6. In the sixth chorus of 'The Rock,' why is it said that men must build with "the sword in one hand and the trowel in the other"?

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

8. How is the "Mr. Eliot" of the "Five-Finger Exercises" satirized?

9. What is a possible interpretation of the use of the phrase "In my beginning is my end" and its inversion, "In my end is my beginning" at the beginning and end of "East Coker"?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

His first major poem, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", is a commentary on the modern world and in particular on the modern man. Provide your own interpretation of this poem in an analytically interpretive essay. Who is Prufrock? What is Prufrock's status in society? What troubles the mind, thoughts, and desires of Prufrock? What characterizes Prufrock as a whole? How is Prufrock a symbol of modernity?

Essay Topic 2

The majority of T.S. Eliot's poetry is written in the deliberately unstructured form of free verse. Prior to Eliot, many poets considered this an inferior form, and in some cases, not a form at all. Evaluate Eliot's use of free verse in one or more of his poems, and judge whether or not it is truly poetic. What does free verse enable the poet to do that regularly structured meter does not? What effects does the free verse employed by Eliot produce? How does the free verse employed by Eliot produce effects? In the poem chosen, what particular effects does the free verse used produce? Why is this fitting for the poem's overall meaning? In what way is the poem truly or not truly poetic because of the free verse form?

Essay Topic 3

Along with "The Waste Land", T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" is often considered a vivid description of the bleariness of hell on earth. Evaluate this interpretation in a critical and analytical essay. What are the images put forth in "The Hollow Men"? Who are the speakers? What is significant about the speakers' descriptions of themselves? What coherence is to be found in the poem's five parts? What is said in each individual part? How does each part corroborate the interpretation of the whole? What is the significance of the failed attempt to pray in the final part? What is the significance of the way the world is said to end for the Hollow Men?

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