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

2. What does the word "wimpling" literally mean in the context of line 4?
(a) Covering.
(b) Like a nun's habit.
(c) Rippling.
(d) Muffling.

3. What would it mean to have "Rebuffed the big wind" (line 7)?
(a) To have used rapid movements to shine or polish it.
(b) To have stood up to and turned away its advance.
(c) To have abruptly and rudely responded to it.
(d) To have brushed against its force and been knocked back.

4. What technique is employed in the poem's final two lines, "blue-bleak embers, ah my dear/ Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion"?
(a) Imagery.
(b) Metaphor.
(c) Euphemism.
(d) Oxymoron.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Which techniques are evident in the phrase "dapple-dawn-drawn" (line 2)?

2. Who is being referred to in line 10's "thee"?

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 is the bird the "dauphin" of (line 2)?

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

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

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

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

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

6. 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"?

7. 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)?

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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