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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. 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?

2. The narrator describes his thoughts as doing which of the following (ll. 33-34)?

3. The narrator remarks that “no sheltering family / could bring consolation to” which of the following (ll. 25-26)?

4. The narrator comments "the curlew’s cry ” which of the following (l. 21)?

5. The narrator describes hail as which of the following (ll. 32-33)?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. 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?

3. 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?

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

5. 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?

6. 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?

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

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

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

The narrator makes much of the disjunction between life aboard ship and life in the town. What effect does the narrator’s focus on the difference between settled and seagoing life have on the reader? How does it do so?

Essay Topic 2

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 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 would such ambiguity have for the PRESUMED PRIMARY AUDIENCE (that is, the people at Exeter Cathedral who would have read or heard the text in the Middle Ages)? How would it have enacted those effects?

(see the answer keys)

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