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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 what is the narrator's heart incited irresistibly (l. 63)?
2. The phrase “roams widely over the whale’s home” (l. 60) offers an example of which of the following?
3. Which of the following is NOT hanging "in the balance before its due time" (ll. 68-70)?
4. In line 55, “bitter in the breast-hoard. He does not know,” which of the following is present?
5. Whence does the narrator's thought fly out (l. 58)?
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. 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)?
3. 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?
4. 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?
5. 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?
6. 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?
7. Consider ll. 58-102 as a unit. What is the overall tone of the passage, and how is it conveyed?
8. What is the strongest pattern of alliteration in line line 42, "that he never has sorrow over his seafaring," and why?
9. 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?
10. 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 rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the assertion?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 rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the assertion?
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
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?
Essay Topic 3
Consider the circumstances in which the original text of “The Seafarer” exists, notably the historical and physical contexts of the work. Who would the expected primary audience be? What in the text and its physical and historical contexts suggests it? How do they do so?
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This section contains 1,279 words (approx. 5 pages at 300 words per page) |
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