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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. Which of the following does the narrator exclude from the mind of one who seeks to sail (ll. 44-47)?
(a) Pleasures of man.
(b) Pleasures of food.
(c) Pleasures of sleep.
(d) Pleasures of woman.

2. What does the narrator note a man will have from his seafaring (l. 42)?
(a) Surprise.
(b) Sorrow.
(c) Sleep.
(d) Solace.

3. The narrator states that “Joy is laid low, / the earth’s nobility grows old and withers, / just like every man throughout this middle-earth” (ll. 88-90). The sentence offers an example of which of the following?
(a) Simile.
(b) Conceit.
(c) Analogy.
(d) Metaphor.

4. What does the narrator claim is a gift that does not help against fear?
(a) Grace.
(b) Youth.
(c) Girth.
(d) Boldness.

5. Which of the following does the narrator exclude from the mind of one who seeks to sail (ll. 44-47)?
(a) A songbird that sings.
(b) Crowns of the kings.
(c) Taking of rings.
(d) Making of things.

Short Answer Questions

1. How long does the narrator claim a brave person's praise will endure (ll. 78-79)?

2. Which of the following will "urge the eager-hearted / spirit to travel" (ll. 48-52)?

3. To which of the following does "the greybeard" refer (l. 92)?

4. To which of the following does "his fleshly cloak" (l. 94) refer?

5. In the phrase “nor so bold in deeds, nor so beloved of his lord” (l. 41), how many times is the alliteration iterated?

Short Essay Questions

1. The narrator comments that “He has no thought of the harp or the taking of rings, / nor the pleasures of woman or joy in the world, / nor anything else but the tumbling waves— / he always has longing who hastens to sea” (ll. 44-47). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the comment?

2. In ll. 55-57, the narrator returns to something of a motif in the poem, stating that “He does not know, / the man blessed with ease, what those endure / who walk most widely in the paths of exile.” What tone is conveyed by the motif? What purpose does it serve as it follows the previous few sentences that speak to longing for the sea?

3. Consider the comment that “the lone flier cries out, / incites my heart irresistibly to the whale’s path / over the open sea” (ll. 62-64). What is the lone flier? How do you know?

4. Consider the narrator’s assertion that “Always, for everyone, one of three things / hangs in the balance before its due time: / illness or age or attack by the sword / wrests life away from one doomed to die” (ll. 68-71). What tone is conveyed by the passage, and how is it conveyed?

5. Consider ll. 58-102 as a unit. What is the overall tone of the passage, and how is it conveyed?

6. The narrator asserts that “And so no man on earth is so proud in spirit, / nor so gifted in grace or so keen in youth, / nor so bold in deeds, nor so beloved of his lord, / that he never has sorrow over his seafaring, / when he sees what the Lord might have in store for him” (ll. 39-43). What tone is conveyed in the assertion, and how?

7. What is the strongest pattern of alliteration in line line 42, "that he never has sorrow over his seafaring," and why?

8. Consider the narrator’s comments that “When life fails [a man], his fleshly cloak will neither / taste the sweet nor touch the sore, / nor move a hand nor think with his mind” (ll. 94-96). What is the “fleshly cloak,” and what wears it? How do you know?

9. The narrator comments that “He has no thought of the harp or the taking of rings, / nor the pleasures of woman or joy in the world, / nor anything else but the tumbling waves— / he always has longing who hastens to sea” (ll. 44-47). What tone is conveyed in the comment, and how?

10. What tone is present in the following passage, and how is it conveyed? “The days are lost, / and all the pomp of this earthly kingdom; / there are now neither kings nor emperors / nor gold-givers as there once were, / when they did the greatest glorious deeds / and lived in most lordly fame” (ll. 80-85)?

(see the answer keys)

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