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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. Where is the volta of "The Windhover"?
(a) Between lines 4 and 5.
(b) Between lines 11 and 12.
(c) Between lines 12 and 13.
(d) Between lines 8 and 9.

2. Between which lines does the poem use "light rhyme"?
(a) A and C.
(b) B and C.
(c) B and D.
(d) A and B.

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

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

5. 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) Oxymoron.
(b) Euphemism.
(c) Metaphor.
(d) Imagery.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What is the common name of the titular bird?

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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. 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. 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)?

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

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

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

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