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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 8 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the best interpretation of the meaning of "but this" in line 5?
(a) "Although pleasure is wonderful."
(b) "Except for our relationship."
(c) "However, when you consider what I am saying."
(d) "On the other hand, the poem I am writing."

2. What kind of fear is the speaker referring to in line 9?
(a) Fear of the beloved's disapproval.
(b) Jealousy and insecurity about the relationship.
(c) An existential fear of purposelessness and loss of meaning.
(d) Fear of loneliness and despair.

3. Which term describes this poem most accurately?
(a) Dialogue.
(b) Aside.
(c) Apostrophe.
(d) Epistle.

4. Line 10, "For love, all love of other sights controls," contains an example of which technique?
(a) Parallelism.
(b) Diacope.
(c) Epistrophe.
(d) Polysyndeton.

5. In line 1, the speaker uses the word "troth." What does this word mean in this context?
(a) A pledge of honesty.
(b) Religious faith.
(c) A sincere question.
(d) Soul, or life force.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the literal meaning of the poem's title?

2. To whom is the speaker addressing this poem?

3. Which term best describes the rhyming in lines 13 and 14, "Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,/ Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one"?

4. Lines 12-14, "Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,/ Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,/ Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one," contain an example of which technique?

5. The mention of the Seven Sleepers in line 4 is an example of which technique?

Short Essay Questions

1. Where is this poem set, and what is happening there?

2. What element of hyperbole is contained in the poem's allusion to the Seven Sleepers?

3. Explain the rhetorical purpose of the image that begins the third stanza.

4. Explain how the conceit of exploration is incorporated into the speaker's argument in stanza two.

5. Explain how the conceit of dreaming unifies the first stanza.

6. Explain the poem's allusion to the Seven Sleepers.

7. Describe the structure of this poem.

8. Explain the poem's final conceit about the hemispheres of a planet.

(see the answer keys)

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