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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 is the implied antecedent of "our" and "we" in lines 1 and 2?

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

3. What technique is used in the phrase "unstoried, artless, unenhanced" (line 15)?

4. Which term most accurately describes the meter of "The Gift Outright"?

5. What techniques are used in the lines "Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,/ Possessed by what we now no more possessed" (lines 6-7)?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. 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)?

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

5. Explain the poem's title.

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

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

How do chiasmus and parallelism support the tone of "The Gift Outright"? Do they serve other purposes, such as creating emphasis or clarifying the relationships among ideas? Write an essay in which you describe how these two techniques are used in the poem and analyze how they contribute to both tone and meaning. Support your assertions with both quoted and paraphrased evidence from the poem; cite all borrowed language in MLA format.

Essay Topic 3

Alabama poet laureate Ashley M. Jones begins her poem "Friendly Skies, or, Black Woman Speaks Herself into God" with the following verse paragraph:

"—we’re taxiing at an airport named after american president ronald reagan. people tell me he was an american hero. sometimes, labels are jumbled in the big dark bag we call manifest destiny. sometimes, things get lost in its velvet mouth."

What do you suppose Jones means when she refers to the "velvet mouth" of manifest destiny? How does skillful rhetoric--evocative diction, rhythmic language, carefully chosen detail, etc.--help to create that "velvet mouth"? Write an essay in which you analyze the "velvet mouth" of "The Gift Outright," demonstrating how Frost's skillful use of language creates an emotional appeal that obscures some of the less appealing facts of American history. Support your assertions with evidence from "The Gift Outright." Cite any borrowed language in MLA format.

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