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

2. Which techniques are evident in the phrase "dapple-dawn-drawn" (line 2)?
(a) Alliteration and internal rhyme.
(b) Onomatopoeia and metaphor.
(c) Metaphor and alliteration.
(d) Internal rhyme and onomatopoeia.

3. Which word is enjambed at the end of line 1 and the beginning of line 2?
(a) Daylight.
(b) Morning.
(c) Minion.
(d) Kingdom.

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

5. What does line 10 say "Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume" do "here" (line 9)?
(a) Buckle.
(b) Stir.
(c) Break.
(d) Soar.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. What would it mean to have "Rebuffed the big wind" (line 7)?

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

4. Where is the volta of "The Windhover"?

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"?

Short Essay Questions

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

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. Describe the poetic form of "The Windhover."

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

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

8. 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"?

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

(see the answer keys)

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