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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) "On the other hand, the poem I am writing."
(c) "However, when you consider what I am saying."
(d) "Except for our relationship."

2. To whom is the speaker addressing this poem?
(a) The general reader.
(b) Critics of his relationship.
(c) An unknown beloved.
(d) His wife.

3. How many additional syllables does the final line in each stanza contain?
(a) 2.
(b) 4.
(c) 1.
(d) 3.

4. Which word in lines 15-18 is meant to contrast the impermanent nature of life outside the lovers' relationship with the eternal nature of their love?
(a) "Plain" (line 16).
(b) "Declining" (line 18).
(c) "Rest" (line 16).
(d) "Sharp" (line 18).

5. What is different about the poem's first two and last two lines?
(a) They do not rhyme.
(b) They are enjambed.
(c) They are addressed to a different audience.
(d) They have fewer syllables than the others.

Short Answer Questions

1. Which techniques are seen in line 15, "My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears"?

2. Line 10, "For love, all love of other sights controls," contains an example of which technique?

3. Line 11, "And makes one little room an everywhere," contains an example of which technique?

4. What is the rhyme scheme within each stanza?

5. 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"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. Describe the structure of this poem.

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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