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

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

3. What is a "chevalier" (line 11)?
(a) A falconer.
(b) A horse.
(c) A bird.
(d) A knight.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. What technique is employed in the line 9 phrase "oh, air, pride, plume, here"?

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

2. 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)?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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