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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 is the subject of "Objects & Apparitions"?

2. For what does the poet express a need in "Sonnet"?

3. In "Banks," to what does the poet compare his complaining?

4. Who are the Brothers of the Souls in 'From "The Life and Death of a Severino"'?

5. What is the symbolic meaning of "Pleasure Seas"?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why is Bandeira so concerned about the specifics of his last poem in "My Last Poem"?

2. Which stanza in section XIV of "From 'The Death and Life of a Severino'" seems different from the others?

3. From what perspective is the story of "The Hanging of the Mouse" told?

4. What is the moral Bishop puts forth in "Thank-You Note"?

5. What is the tone of "Lines Written in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook"?

6. In Carlos Drummond de Andrade's "Infancy," why does the author refer to Robinson Crusoe as "the long story that never comes to an end"?

7. How does the location in "Santarem" parallel the Garden of Eden?

8. How are the "Four Sambas" by Anonymous different from the rest of the poems in the book?

9. What do all the metaphorical places in "For C.W.B." have in common?

10. In what state does the poet imply she is currently in her poem "Sonnet," written in 1928?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is Bishop's attitude toward the characters in "Exchanging Hats"? Is it objective or judgmental? Support your claim with specific quotations from the poem. Does her attitude seem out of character for Bishop, considering the sense of humor she displays in other poems? Do you think her attitude has to do with the fact that the trend she witnesses is started by an "unfunny uncle"? Might she view things differently if the trend had been started by someone she admired?

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Bishop's use of personification in the three poems in Rainy Season; Sub Tropics. What does each animal tell us about the speaker's view of humanity? Why do you think Bishop chose the specific animals she did? How would the poem have been different if she had used exaggerated human characters?

Essay Topic 3

Why do you think Bishop chose to translate the poems of other writers from a variety of places? How does this relate to what you've learned about Bishop as a writer and as a person from reading her own work? Were you surprised by any of the choices she made in terms of poets, poems, languages, or the specific choices she made in translating each poem? Do you think it is appropriate to include translations in a collection of Bishop's poems? In what ways are these poems her work, and in what ways are they the work of the original poet? How would your experience of the book have been different if the translations had been omitted?

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