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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 the bird the "dauphin" of (line 2)?
(a) Flight.
(b) The air.
(c) Daylight.
(d) The dawn.

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

3. Who is being referred to in line 10's "thee"?
(a) The speaker.
(b) The windhover.
(c) The air.
(d) Christ.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

1. Between which lines does the poem use "light rhyme"?

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

3. What techniques are evident in the phrase "Rebuffed the big wind" (line 7)?

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"?

5. What is "sillion" (line 12)?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

4. 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)?

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

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

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 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"?

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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