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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. In line 17, “hung with icicles of frost while hail flew in showers,” how many relatively stressed / emphasized syllables are present?

2. The narrator describes which of the following as happening when his feet were “bound by frost / in cold fetters” (ll. 9-11)?

3. 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?

4. The narrator remarks that “Storms beat the stone cliffs where the tern answered them, / icy-feathered; often the eagle screamed, / dewy-feathered” (ll. 23-25). The passage offers an example of which of the following?

5. In line 28, “suffered few sad journeys, scarcely believes,” relative stress / emphasis falls on the first or only syllable of which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. The poem opens with the narrator saying “I sing a true song of myself, / tell of my journeys” (ll. 1-2). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. The opening passages of the poem has the narrator state that “in days of toil / I’ve often suffered troubled times, / hard heartache” (ll. 2-4). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

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

7. 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?

8. 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 rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the comment?

9. 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?

10. 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 rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in doing so?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Liuzza remarks that there is a shift in the poem so drastic that it has been taken in the past to indicate two narrators at work in the poem (19n5). While Liuzza adds that scholarship generally rejects the idea, there is still a pronounced shift in tone in the poem. Where is it, and what in the text places it at that point, rather than at another point?

Essay Topic 2

Consider how effectively "The Seafarer" puts across its central message to its PRESUMED PRIMARY AUDIENCE (that is, the people at Exeter Cathedral who would have read or heard the text in the Middle Ages). Consider also how effectively the poem puts across its central message for YOU as a current reader. What do the similarities / differences in the poem's effectiveness suggest about the differences between the audiences? How do they do so? (In effect, you are being asked to compare / contrast the audiences in terms of how and why "The Seafarer" does and does not convey its central message clearly.)

Essay Topic 3

The narrator notes having “dwelt all winter / on the ice-cold sea in the paths of exile” (ll. 14-15). How does the poem read if “paths of exile” is a literal statement meaning “paths taken by someone not allowed to return home?” How does it read if, instead, “paths of exile” is a kenning referring simply to “the sea”?

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