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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. The narrator remarks that none “could bring consolation to my desolate soul” (l. 26). How many relatively stressed / emphasized syllables are in the line?
(a) 5.
(b) 6.
(c) 4.
(d) 3.

2. Which of the following does the narrator “come to know / on the keel of a ship” (ll. 5-6)?
(a) Care's swellings.
(b) Care's dwellings.
(c) Car selling.
(d) Coarse dwellings.

3. In line 35, “the high seas, the tossing salt streams,” how many times is the alliteration iterated?
(a) 2.
(b) 5.
(c) 3.
(d) 4.

4. The narrator remarks that “I heard nothing there but the noise of the sea” (l. 18). Relative stress / emphasis falls at the beginning of which words in the remark?
(a) I and sea.
(b) I and nothing.
(c) Heard and noise.
(d) There and the.

5. The narrator remarks that “the wild swan’s song / sometimes served as my music, the gannet’s call / and the curlew’s cry for the laughter of men, / the seagull’s singing for mead-drink” (ll. 19-22). The passage offers an example of which of the following?
(a) Passant.
(b) Pointillism.
(c) Parallelism.
(d) Paradox.

Short Answer Questions

1. The narrator comments about “the curlew’s cry for the laughter of men” (l. 21). The comment offers an example of which of the following?

2. The narrator claims to be doubted by which of the following (ll. 27-30)?

3. The narrator describes hail as which of the following (ll. 32-33)?

4. The narrator remarks that “no sheltering family / could bring consolation to” which of the following (ll. 25-26)?

5. In the sentence “And so he who has tasted life’s joy in towns, / suffered few sad journeys, scarcely believes, / proud and puffed up with wine, what I, weary, / have often had to endure in my seafaring” (ll. 27-30), which of the following does NOT describe the “he” upon whom the narrator remarks?

Short Essay Questions

1. The narrator remarks that “he who has tasted life’s joy in towns, / suffered few sad journeys, scarcely believes, / proud and puffed up with wine, what I, weary, / have often had to endure in my suffering” (ll. 27-30). What tone is conveyed in the passage?

2. The narrator states that “The night-shadow darkened; snow came from the north, / frost bound the ground, hail fell on earth, / coldest of grains” (ll. 31-33). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the statement?

3. Consider the kenning for hail, “coldest of grains” (l. 33). How does the kenning construct meaning?

4. The second sentence of the poem reads "Pinched with cold / were my feet, bound by frost / in cold fetters, while cares seethed / hot around my heart, hunger tore from within / my sea-weary mind" (ll. 8-12). Three things are put into juxtaposition. What are they, and what effect does the juxtaposition have?

5. The narrator remarks that “no sheltering family / could bring consolation to my desolate soul” (ll. 25-26). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

6. Consider the symbolism of the seabirds the narrator catalogs (ll. 20-23). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in evoking it?

7. Consider the symbolism of the swan-song the narrator mentions (ll. 19-20). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in evoking it?

8. What tone is set by the first 26 lines of the poem? How do they do so?

9. The narrator remarks that "That man does not know, / he whose lot is fairest on land, / how I, wretched with care, dwelt all winter / on the ice-cold sea in the paths of exile, / deprived of dear kinsmen, / hung with icicles of frost while hail flew in showers" (ll. 12-17). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

10. The narrator comments that “they compel me now, / my heart-thoughts, to try for myself / the high seas, the tossing salt streams; / my heart’s desire urges my spirit / time and again to travel, so that I might seek / far from here a foreign land” (ll. 33-38). What tone is conveyed in the passage?

(see the answer keys)

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