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

2. What is the reader implored not to hope to find behind the white well in the third Landscape?

3. What in Part V of "Four Quartets: Burnt Norton" is said to be "itself unmoving, / Only the cause and end of movement"?

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

5. How many of the characters are women in the fragment of a prologue?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. For what is the ship in "Marina" a symbolic signifier?

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

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

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

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

7. What is the apparent distinction between the attitude towards Christmas of the child and the childish in "The Cultivation of Christmas Trees"?

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

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

As T.S. Eliot's character of the "everyman," Sweeney appears in a number of poems and in one of the fragments of the unfinished poem, the "Sweeney Agonistes". Analyze the character of Sweeney as he appears in at least one of Eliot's works, giving an overall portrayal of the character through specific instances. What are his principal traits? What does he lack as a person? In what sort of actions does he engage? How is he representative of modern man? Who and what are used as contrasts to Sweeney as a person and Sweeney's patterns of behavior?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Literature and philosophy have often been considered close and sometimes overlapping disciplines of academic study and Western culture. That T.S. Eliot was well versed in both is demonstrated in his last major poems, the "Four Quartets". Select one of the "Four Quartets" and in a carefully planned critical essay, examine the relationship between its literary structure and its philosophical considerations. What are the philosophical topics approached in the poem? In what way does the poem consider things in abstraction? In what way is the poem a literary structure (operate on the definition of literature as the imaginative creation of character and/or action, according to the laws of possibility and necessity)? How does the literary structure corroborate the philosophical consideration? Wherein does one find the literary significance of the poem? Wherein is the philosophical consideration found?

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