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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. To which genre does “The Seafarer” belong?

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

3. The narrator notes suffering which of the following "in days of toil" (ll. 2-3)?

4. The narrator remarks that “the wild swan’s song / sometimes served as my music, the gannet’s call / and the curlew’s cry for the laughter of men, / the seagull’s singing for mead-drink” (ll. 19-22). The passage offers an example of which of the following?

5. In the sentence “And so 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 seafaring” (ll. 27-30), which of the following does NOT describe the “he” upon whom the narrator remarks?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

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

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

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 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?

6. 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?

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

8. The narrator states that “The night-shadow darkened; snow came from the north, / frost bound the ground, hail fell on earth, / coldest of grains” (ll. 31-33). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the statement?

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. 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?

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

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

Liuzza translates the Old English “forþon” as “and so” throughout his rendering, emphasizing the uncertainty of relationships between ideas in it (19n4). What effects does such ambiguity have for CURRENT readers (that is, those hearing / reading the text today)? How does it enact those effects?

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