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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 7 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What technique is used in the line "Such as she was, such as she would become" (line 16)?

2. The repetition of the word "deed" in line 13 is an example of which technique?

3. What technique is used in the lines "She was our land more than a hundred years/ Before we were her people" (lines 2-3)?

4. What techniques are used in the lines "She was ours/ In Massachusetts, in Virginia" (lines 3-4)?

5. Which technique is used in the first line, "The land was ours before we were the land’s"?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is implied by the diction the speaker uses to describe the lands yet to be conquered by American settlers: "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?

2. Describe the form of "The Gift Outright."

3. What does the speaker mean by "the land vaguely realizing westward" (line 14)?

4. What does the speaker claim makes the colonists "weak," and what is the solution to this weakness (line 8)?

5. Explain the poem's title.

6. To whom is it implied the pronouns "our" and "we" refer in this poem?

7. Explain the synecdoche in line 4, "In Massachusetts, in Virginia."

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What is the theme of "The Gift Outright"? What is the poem's subject matter, and what claim about Americans and the land does it advance? What is the poem's tone, and how is it created? How do the poem's diction and its use of chiasmus, parallelism, and repetition contribute to its meaning? How does line 13 impact the poem's overall meaning? To what extent does "The Gift Outright" either acknowledge or elide the violence integral to the nation's foundation and expansion? Write an essay that makes and defends a claim about the theme of this poem. Support your assertions with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from the poem; cite all borrowed language in MLA format.

Essay Topic 2

Read Frost's poem "Mending Wall" (widely available online). What is the speaker's attitude toward order, rules, and the uncritical acceptance of tradition? What does his neighbor seem to believe about the possession of land, and how does the speaker react to this belief? What is he really suggesting to his neighbor when he says that it might be elves who have broken the wall? Is the attitude of the speaker of "The Gift Outright" similar or different? What does this speaker's use of legal language convey about his belief in "law and order"? What does he seem to believe about the uncritical acceptance of tradition? What does he seem to believe about the possession of land? How is this related to the poem's hidden premises and the beliefs suggested by the poem's final two lines? Write an essay in which you make and defend a claim about a significant similarity or difference in the attitudes of these two speakers towards traditional notions of order, land ownership, or some other concept central to the argument advanced by "The Gift Outright." Support your assertions with evidence drawn from both poems; cite all sources in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

What other patriotic poems have you read or heard? Do these, like "The Gift Outright," skirt past painful facts in order to celebrate a nation's achievements? Are there patriotic poems that are able to acknowledge a nation's faults, or would this make them no longer "patriotic"? Choose a poem that is widely considered to be "patriotic" and compare it to "The Gift Outright," analyzing the extent to which either poem is able to present a balanced and realistic picture of the nation it celebrates. In your conclusion, comment on the purposes of patriotic poetry and whether "balance" and "realism" are desirable qualities in this genre of poetry. Support your assertions with evidence from both poems, and cite all sources in MLA format.

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