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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In line 5, what does the speaker claim the bird is feeling?
(a) Awe.
(b) Pride.
(c) Anticipation.
(d) Ecstasy.

2. Who is the author of "The Windhover"?
(a) Christina Rossetti.
(b) Gerard Manley Hopkins.
(c) Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
(d) Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

3. What is the common name of the titular bird?
(a) Kite.
(b) Hawk.
(c) Kestrel.
(d) Osprey.

4. What technique is employed in the line 9 phrase "oh, air, pride, plume, here"?
(a) Antithesis.
(b) Anaphora.
(c) Asyndeton.
(d) Atanaclasis.

5. Which word is enjambed at the end of line 1 and the beginning of line 2?
(a) Minion.
(b) Morning.
(c) Kingdom.
(d) Daylight.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a "chevalier" (line 11)?

2. What technique is employed in the poem's final two lines, "blue-bleak embers, ah my dear/ Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion"?

3. What does line 10 say "Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume" do "here" (line 9)?

4. What type of rhyme is seen in the poem's "A" lines?

5. In lines 10 and 11, the speaker says that the fire "that breaks from thee" is a billion times "lovelier" and more what?

Short Essay Questions

1. How do the images in the last three lines support the idea that there is "no wonder" in the kestrel's fight (line 9)?

2. What are the literal and figurative meanings of the poem's references to a "dauphin" and a "chevalier"?

3. What is the meaning of the simile contained in lines 6 and 7: " As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding/ Rebuffed the big wind"?

4. What Christian paradox is expressed when the speaker refers to the bird as both a "minion" and a "dauphin" (lines 1-2)?

5. Describe the poetic form of "The Windhover."

6. In "The Windhover," who is speaking, and what moves him to speak?

7. Describe the relationship of the content in the poem's final six lines to the content in lines 1-8.

8. What is the relationship of the expression "in his riding/ Of the rolling level underneath him steady air" (lines 2-3) to the later reference to "the rein of a wimpling wing" (line 4)?

9. What makes a creature like the windhover an appropriate symbol for Christ?

10. What is a "windhover," and what characteristic of its flight is focused on in this poem?

(see the answer keys)

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