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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. What is "sillion" (line 12)?
(a) Sunshine.
(b) An uncountable amount.
(c) The sparkling of a diamond.
(d) A type of soil.

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

3. What device is evident in line 10's "the fire that breaks from thee then"?
(a) Apostrophe.
(b) Personification.
(c) Hyperbole.
(d) Verbal irony.

4. What does line 10 say "Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume" do "here" (line 9)?
(a) Stir.
(b) Buckle.
(c) Break.
(d) Soar.

5. What type of rhyme is seen in the poem's "B" lines"?
(a) Slant.
(b) Masculine.
(c) Eye.
(d) Feminine.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the bird the "dauphin" of (line 2)?

2. Which word is enjambed at the end of line 1 and the beginning of line 2?

3. In lines 2-3, "in his riding/ Of the rolling level underneath him steady air," which word tells what the bird is "riding"?

4. What does the word "wimpling" literally mean in the context of line 4?

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. 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)?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

10. 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"?

(see the answer keys)

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