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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. Whose hands wove the "intolerable shirt of flame" in Part IV of "Four Quartets: Little Gidding"?

2. What object is the speaker of "Marina" considering when he states that the object is "less clear and clearer"?

3. Whom does the poet shall "try" man's well-preserved complacency in the third of the "Five Finger Exercises"?

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

5. Across what river does the "camp fire shake with alien spears" in "The wind sprang up at four o'clock"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Why should the innocent approach of the child to Christmas not be lost, according to "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees"?

4. How is Part IV of "The Dry Salvages" different from the other four sections of the poem?

5. What is characteristic of the gods described in all of the sections aside from Part IV of "The Dry Salvages"?

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

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

8. What is the overall condition of true lovers described in "A Dedication to My Wife"?

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

10. 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"?

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

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?

Essay Topic 3

Important to many of Eliot's poems are the devices of simile, metaphor, and analogy. Considering a wide selection of his poems, craft an analytical essay on these poetic devices. What are they? How do they aid in the creation of poetic imagery and poetic meaning? What are some specific instances of each? How do these specific instances aid the reader in both visualizing the poem's literal significance and its deeper meaning?

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