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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 29, the description “proud and puffed up with wine” is a descriptor meaning which of the following?

2. The narrator remarks that “Storms beat the stone cliffs where the tern answered them, / icy-feathered” (ll. 23-24). The passage offers an example of which of the following?

3. 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). In the sentence, “I” is in apposition to which of the following?

4. Which of the following does the narrator “come to know / on the keel of a ship” (ll. 5-6)?

5. 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). The sentence offers an example of which of the following?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. 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?

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

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

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

7. 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?

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 tone is conveyed in the passage?

9. 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?

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

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Consider the central message of "The Seafarer." Argue how the message and / or its support is incorrect; identify the weaknesses in the poem's central message and / or the way it presents the message, articulating why the identified weaknesses are, in fact, weaknesses.

Essay Topic 2

Given the insistence throughout the poem of the dangers and discomforts of seafaring, especially as contrasted with the pleasure and ease of remaining at home, does voyaging out and abroad come across as worth doing? How or how not? How is such worth determined?

Essay Topic 3

Consider the overall poem, its contexts, and its PRESUMED PRIMARY AUDIENCE (that is, the people at Exeter Cathedral who would have read or heard the text in the Middle Ages). What is the central message of the poem? What in the text and context suggests it is so? Given its presumed primary audience, is it likely to be convincing in putting across that central message? Why or why not?

(see the answer keys)

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