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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. How does the narrator describe a brother's soul (l. 100)?
(a) Empty of meaning.
(b) Full of food.
(c) Empty of sin.
(d) Full of sin.

2. Whence does the narrator's thought fly out (l. 58)?
(a) His head.
(b) His belly.
(c) His breast.
(d) His ears.

3. Which of the following will "urge the eager-hearted / spirit to travel" (ll. 48-52)?
(a) Cities grow hair.
(b) Cities grow fair.
(c) Cities are there.
(d) People grow fair.

4. In l. 92, “the graybeard grieves; he knows his old friends,” how many relatively stressed / emphasized syllables are present?
(a) 4.
(b) 2.
(c) 5.
(d) 3.

5. In l. 80, “delight among heaven’s host. The days are lost,” how many times is the alliteration iterated?
(a) 3.
(b) 2.
(c) 5.
(d) 4.

Short Answer Questions

1. What happens to the earth's nobility (l. 89)?

2. The narrator describes how many people as fearless (ll. 39-43)?

3. Which of the following does the narrator exclude from the mind of one who seeks to sail (ll. 44-47)?

4. In line 55, “bitter in the breast-hoard. He does not know,” which of the following is present?

5. To what does "be on his way" refer (l. 74)?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. 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)?

6. 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?

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

8. 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?

9. 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?

10. 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?

(see the answer keys)

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