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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. Which of the following will "urge the eager-hearted / spirit to travel" (ll. 48-52)?

2. In the line “my spirit moves with the sea-flood” (l. 59), how many relatively stressed / emphasized syllables are present?

3. Whence does the narrator's thought fly out (l. 58)?

4. Which of the following is NOT hanging "in the balance before its due time" (ll. 68-70)?

5. Line 67, “that earthly goods will endure forever,” offers an example of which of the following?

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 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?

2. 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?

3. Consider ll. 58-102 as a unit. What is the overall tone of the passage, and how is it conveyed?

4. 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?

5. 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?

6. 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?

7. 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)?

8. 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?

9. 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?

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

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

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?

Essay Topic 3

Consider ll. 48-52, “The groves take blossom” through “over the flood-ways.” How might such things as the narrator notes serve to “urge the eager-hearted / spirit to travel” (ll. 50-51)?

(see the answer keys)

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