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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. What has the fallen noble host lost (l. 86)?

2. Which of the following does he have "who hastens to sea" (l. 47)?

3. Line 83, “nor gold-gives as there once were,” offers an example of which of the following?

4. Line 92, “the graybeard grieves; he knows his old friends,” offers an example of which of the following?

5. The narrator describes how many people as fearless (ll. 39-43)?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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)?

2. What is the strongest pattern of alliteration in line line 42, "that he never has sorrow over his seafaring," and why?

3. 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?

4. 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?

5. 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?

6. Consider the narrator’s statement that “And so now my thought flies out from my breast, / my spirit moves with the sea-flood. / roams widely over the whale’s home, / to the corners of the earth, and comes back to me / greedy and hungry” (ll. 58-62). What tone is conveyed by the passage, and how is it conveyed?

7. 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?

8. 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). Line 40 stands out from the surrounding lines in using the conjunction “or” instead of “nor,” implying a different relationship between “so gifted in grace” and “so keen in youth” than between “bold in deeds” and “beloved of his lord” (l. 41). What is the implied relationship, and how is it implied?

9. Consider the comment that “the lone flier cries out, / incites my heart irresistibly to the whale’s path / over the open sea” (ll. 62-64). What is the lone flier? How do you know?

10. 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?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 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

There are a few points in the poem, of which “deprived of dear kinsmen” (l. 16) is an example, where the line Liuzza presents (as well as that in the Old English) is markedly short. What effects do the short lines have for CURRENT readers (that is, those hearing / reading the text today)? How do they enact those effects?

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