View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. To whom is the poem dedicated?
(a) Matthew Arnold.
(b) The poet's spouse.
(c) Christ.
(d) A Victorian minister.

3. In lines 10 and 11, the speaker says that the fire "that breaks from thee" is a billion times "lovelier" and more what?
(a) Hypnotic.
(b) Rapturous.
(c) Sanctified.
(d) Dangerous.

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

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Who is being referred to in line 10's "thee"?

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

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

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

7. 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"?

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

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

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

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 872 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample