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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. With what does the narrator's spirit move (l. 59)?
(a) The reindeer.
(b) The birds.
(c) The sun.
(d) The ocean.

2. In l. 70, “illness or age or attack by the sword,” relative stress / emphasis falls on the first or only syllable of which of the following?
(a) The.
(b) Sword.
(c) Attack.
(d) By.

3. In l. 102, “the gold he had hidden while he lived here on earth,” how many times is the DOMINANT alliteration iterated?
(a) 3.
(b) 4.
(c) 2.
(d) 5.

4. Line 66, “loaned, on land. I will never believe,” offers an example of which of the following?
(a) Ensorcellment.
(b) Enjambment.
(c) End-stop.
(d) Enthrallment.

5. Which of the following will "urge the eager-hearted / spirit to travel" (ll. 48-52)?
(a) Forests brighten.
(b) Cities darken.
(c) Fields darken.
(d) Fields brighten.

Short Answer Questions

1. In l. 85, “and lived in most lordly fame,” how many relatively stressed / emphasized syllables are present?

2. In l. 92, “the graybeard grieves; he knows his old friends,” how many relatively stressed / emphasized syllables are present?

3. How often will the narrator believe in the endurance of physical things (ll. 66-67)?

4. Line 83, “nor gold-gives as there once were,” offers an example of which of the following?

5. To what is the narrator's heart incited irresistibly (l. 63)?

Short Essay Questions

1. Consider the narrator’s statement that “And so now my thought flies out from my breast, / my spirit moves with the sea-flood. / roams widely over the whale’s home, / to the corners of the earth, and comes back to me / greedy and hungry” (ll. 58-62). What tone is conveyed by the passage, and how is it conveyed?

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

4. Consider ll. 64-66, “because hotter to me / are the joys of the Lord than this dead life, / loaned, on land.” Given the physical and historical context of the poem, as well as its content, why might “the joys of the Lord” be described favorably as “hotter” by the narrator?

5. 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 rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the assertion?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 rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the assertion?

6. 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?

7. 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). Line 40 stands out from the surrounding lines in using the conjunction “or” instead of “nor,” implying a different relationship between “so gifted in grace” and “so keen in youth” than between “bold in deeds” and “beloved of his lord” (l. 41). What is the implied relationship, and how is it implied?

8. 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)?

9. 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?

10. 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?

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