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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. In the phrase “summer’s guardian announces sorrow” (l. 54), relative stress / emphasis DOES NOT fall on the first syllable of which of the following?
(a) Sorrow.
(b) Announces.
(c) Guardian.
(d) Summer's.

2. Which of the following does the narrator exclude from the mind of one who seeks to sail (ll. 44-47)?
(a) Making of things.
(b) Taking of rings.
(c) A songbird that sings.
(d) Crowns of the kings.

3. The descriptor “greedy and hungry” (l. 62) modifies which of the following?
(a) The sea-flood.
(b) My spirit.
(c) My breast.
(d) Me.

4. Which of the following will "urge the eager-hearted / spirit to travel" (ll. 48-52)?
(a) Cities grow fair.
(b) Cities grow hair.
(c) Cities are there.
(d) People grow fair.

5. The narrator describes sorrow as being which of the following (ll. 54-55)?
(a) Stinky in the strong-parts.
(b) Bitter in the breast-hoard.
(c) Painful to the purse-string.
(d) Sour in the skull-hoard.

Short Answer Questions

1. To which of the following does "his fleshly cloak" (l. 94) refer?

2. The phrase “roams widely over the whale’s home” (l. 60) offers an example of which of the following?

3. In the phrase “summer’s guardian announces sorrow” (l. 54), which of the following is present?

4. In l. 80, “delight among heaven’s host. The days are lost,” there is an example of which of the following?

5. Which of the following will "urge the eager-hearted / spirit to travel" (ll. 48-52)?

Short Essay Questions

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. Consider the comment that “the lone flier cries out, / incites my heart irresistibly to the whale’s path / over the open sea” (ll. 62-64). What is the lone flier? How do you know?

4. In ll. 55-57, the narrator returns to something of a motif in the poem, stating that “He does not know, / the man blessed with ease, what those endure / who walk most widely in the paths of exile.” What tone is conveyed by the motif? What purpose does it serve as it follows the previous few sentences that speak to longing for the sea?

5. 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?

6. 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)?

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

8. 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?

9. 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?

10. 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?

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