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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. Whom does the narrator claim is beaten by bold deeds (l. 76)?
(a) The seafarer.
(b) The eagle.
(c) The man in town.
(d) The devil.

2. The phrase “roams widely over the whale’s home” (l. 60) offers an example of which of the following?
(a) Künstlerroman.
(b) Cunning.
(c) Curling.
(d) Kenning.

3. What does the narrator claim is a gift that does not help against fear?
(a) Grace.
(b) Boldness.
(c) Youth.
(d) Girth.

4. To what is the narrator's heart incited irresistibly (l. 63)?
(a) The river.
(b) The ocean.
(c) The well.
(d) The lake.

5. How often will the narrator believe in the endurance of physical things (ll. 66-67)?
(a) Sometimes.
(b) Never.
(c) Once.
(d) Always.

Short Answer Questions

1. With what does the narrator's spirit move (l. 59)?

2. Whence does the narrator's thought fly out (l. 58)?

3. Which of the following does the narrator exclude from the mind of one who seeks to sail (ll. 44-47)?

4. How does the narrator describe a brother's soul (l. 100)?

5. Who remains to rule the world (l. 87)?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the strongest pattern of alliteration in line line 42, "that he never has sorrow over his seafaring," and why?

2. Consider ll. 64-66, “because hotter to me / are the joys of the Lord than this dead life, / loaned, on land.” Given the physical and historical context of the poem, as well as its content, why might “the joys of the Lord” be described favorably as “hotter” by the narrator?

3. Consider the narrator’s statement that “And so now my thought flies out from my breast, / my spirit moves with the sea-flood. / roams widely over the whale’s home, / to the corners of the earth, and comes back to me / greedy and hungry” (ll. 58-62). What tone is conveyed by the passage, and how is it conveyed?

4. The narrator comments that “He has no thought of the harp or the taking of rings, / nor the pleasures of woman or joy in the world, / nor anything else but the tumbling waves— / he always has longing who hastens to sea” (ll. 44-47). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the comment?

5. Consider the narrator’s assertion that “Always, for everyone, one of three things / hangs in the balance before its due time: / illness or age or attack by the sword / wrests life away from one doomed to die” (ll. 68-71). What tone is conveyed by the passage, and how is it conveyed?

6. The narrator asserts that “And so no man on earth is so proud in spirit, / nor so gifted in grace or so keen in youth, / nor so bold in deeds, nor so beloved of his lord, / that he never has sorrow over his seafaring, / when he sees what the Lord might have in store for him” (ll. 39-43). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the assertion?The narrator asserts that “And so no man on earth is so proud in spirit, / nor so gifted in grace or so keen in youth, / nor so bold in deeds, nor so beloved of his lord, / that he never has sorrow over his seafaring, / when he sees what the Lord might have in store for him” (ll. 39-43). What rhetorical appeal/s does the narrator make in the assertion?

7. The narrator asserts that “And so no man on earth is so proud in spirit, / nor so gifted in grace or so keen in youth, / nor so bold in deeds, nor so beloved of his lord, / that he never has sorrow over his seafaring, / when he sees what the Lord might have in store for him” (ll. 39-43). Line 40 stands out from the surrounding lines in using the conjunction “or” instead of “nor,” implying a different relationship between “so gifted in grace” and “so keen in youth” than between “bold in deeds” and “beloved of his lord” (l. 41). What is the implied relationship, and how is it implied?

8. Consider ll. 58-102 as a unit. What is the overall tone of the passage, and how is it conveyed?

9. What tone is present in the following passage, and how is it conveyed? “The days are lost, / and all the pomp of this earthly kingdom; / there are now neither kings nor emperors / nor gold-givers as there once were, / when they did the greatest glorious deeds / and lived in most lordly fame” (ll. 80-85)?

10. Consider the narrator’s comments that “When life fails [a man], his fleshly cloak will neither / taste the sweet nor touch the sore, / nor move a hand nor think with his mind” (ll. 94-96). What is the “fleshly cloak,” and what wears it? How do you know?

(see the answer keys)

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