Card 0 of 20
A Late Walk
1 When I go up through the mowing field,
2 The headless aftermath,
3 Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
4 Half closes the garden path.
5 And when I come to the garden ground,
6 The whir of sober birds
7 Up from the tangle of withered weeds
8 Is sadder than any words
9 A tree beside the wall stands bare,
10 But a leaf that lingered brown,
11 Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
12 Comes softly rattling down.
13 I end not far from my going forth
14 By picking the faded blue
15 Of the last remaining aster flower
16 To carry again to you.
Which of the following is a simile?
"Smooth-laid like thatch" (line 3) is the simile; a simile is a figure pf speech in which two seemingly unlike things are compared using "like" or "as." Usually the words indicate two things that have some similar quality, however, although this may not be immediately evident. In this instance, the "mowing field" (line 1) is like "thatch" (line 3).
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Batter my heart (Holy Sonnet 14)
1 Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
2 As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
3 That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
4 Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
5 I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
6 Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
7 Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
8 But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
9 Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
10 But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
11 Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
12 Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
13 Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
14 Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
The only simile throughout this sonnet is .
"like an usurp'd town" (line 5) is the only simile throughout this sonnet, as it makes a direct comparison between two apparently unlike things—the poet and an usurp'd town—with the word "like." When constructing similes, the word "as" is also used.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Batter my heart (Holy Sonnet 14)
1 Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
2 As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
3 That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
4 Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
5 I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
6 Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
7 Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
8 But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
9 Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
10 But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
11 Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
12 Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
13 Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
14 Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
The major extended metaphor of the sonnet is the poet representing himself as .
The major extended metaphor of the sonnet is the poet representing himself as a captured city, as he is "like an usurp'd town" (line 5), until the typical sonnet turn in line 9.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
1 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
2 I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
3 My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
4 For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
5 I love thee to the level of everyday's
6 Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
7 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
8 I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
9 I love thee with the passion put to use
10 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
11 I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
12 With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
13 Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
14 I shall but love thee better after death.
The following can be described as a spatial metaphor:
"I love thee to the depth and breadth and height / My soul can reach," (lines 2–3) can be described as a spatial metaphor, as the speaker depicts his or her love occupying the same 3-dimensional space as his or her soul's reach.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
1 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
2 I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
3 My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
4 For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
5 I love thee to the level of everyday's
6 Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
7 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
8 I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
9 I love thee with the passion put to use
10 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
11 I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
12 With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
13 Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
14 I shall but love thee better after death.
The concrete metaphor "by sun and candle-light" (line 6) very likely represents .
The concrete metaphor "by sun and candle-light" (line 6) very likely represents day and night, as the speaker loves ceaselessly throughout the day and night.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The "eye of heaven" in line 5 very likely represents __________.
The "eye of heaven" in line 5 very likely represents the sun, as it "shines" (line 5) with a "gold complexion" (line 6).
Compare your answer with the correct one above
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
In which line is there a strong lending metaphor?
"Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay," (Line 3), is a strong metaphor in which the speaker seems to believe he has entered into a contract with God, and God has come to collect his payment. The metaphor is the son being compared to a loan.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
1 O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
2 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
3 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
4 For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
5 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
6 As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
7 Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly,
8 When summer's breath their masked buds discloses;
9 But, for their virtue only is their show,
10 They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
11 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
12 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
13 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
14 When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.
(1609)
“When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses” (line 8) is an example of ___________.
“When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses;” (line 8) is an example of personification, as personification is a figure of speech where an inanimate object or idea possesses human attributes or abilities. Here, "summer" (an inanimate idea) has a "breath" (humans breathe).
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 54" by William Shakespeare)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Passage adapted from "In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound (1919)
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
What is the effect of placing the two images, "faces" and "petals," side by side in the poem?
Ezra Pound places the two images side by side in order to compare their relative emotional impact on him. He has created a metaphor without using any connective words: he doesn't say the faces _are p_etals, nor does he say the faces are like petals, because the comparison between the two images is based completely on his impression rather than a literal or objective interpretation of the objects.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
1 Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer;
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
5 But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
9 Alas, why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
13 Love is a babe; then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?
(1609)
Which of the following phrases from the poem is the best example of a metaphor?
A metaphor is a direct comparison or identification of two things that are not literally the same. It is similar to another literary device, the simile, but unlike the simile does not use the comparing words "like" or "as."
"Love is a babe" is the only answer that directly compares two things. "Love" is compared to "a babe."
"Time's tyranny" (line 9) is an example of personification.
"My most full flame" (line 4) is a figurative way of describing love, but does not contain a direct comparison of two things and so is not the best example of a metaphor. ("My love is a flame" would be a good example of a metaphor. "My love is like a flame" would be a good example of a simile.)
Passage adapted from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 115" (1609)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
(1847)
What type of imagery is most pervasive in this passage?
The poem includes many descriptions of sounds in its opening lines: “murmuring,” “voices sad and prophetic,” “loud,” “deep-voiced,” “accents disconsolate,” and “wail.” Although there are also examples of visual imagery here, auditory descriptions comprise the majority of the imagery in this passage.
Passage adapted from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Evangeline.”(1847)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say
What was this forest savage, rough, and stern, (5)
Which in the very thought renews the fear.
So bitter is it, death is little more;
But of the good to treat, which there I found,
Speak will I of the other things I saw there.
According to the text, what does the “forest” (line 2) represent?
We can see in lines 4-5 the speaker’s difficulty in naming what the forest represents: “how hard a thing it is to say / What was this forest savage, rough, and stern.” We can also see that this forest is barely less bitter than death. This implies that the forest, while frightening, is not itself death. There is less textual support for midlife crisis, exodus, or negative thinking.
Passage adapted from Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, trans. Charles Eliot Norton (1920)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots.
Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.
We will make thee borders of gold with studs of silver.
While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof.
A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me; he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. (5)
My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire in the vineyards of Engedi.
Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes.
Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant: also our bed is green.
The beams of our house are cedar, and our rafters of fir.
The speaker uses figurative language of all but which of the following types?
The speaker uses agrarian terms with the mention of “vineyards” (line 6). We see an avian reference with the comparison of the lover’s eyes to “doves’” (line 7). We have medicinal references with the herbs “spikenard,” “myrrh,” and “camphire” (lines 4, 5, 6). Lastly, we have domestic language with the description of the bed, house beams, and rafters (lines 8-9).
Passage adapted from the “Song of Solomon,” King James Bible.
Compare your answer with the correct one above
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,(5)
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;(10)
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Based on context, what is the meaning of “antique land” (line 1)?
We know from later lines in the poem that this antique land’s monuments are now in ruin and that its rulers are long dead, which helps us rule out some of the choices. We are looking for the answer that best describes a once-great empire, and “kingdom from antiquity” is the best fit.
Passage adapted from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” (1818)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night, (5)
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
(1817)
Based on context, what is likely meant by “\[t\]he innumerable caravan” (line 2)?
The phrase in question refers not to death itself but to the collective dead. We can tell this by the fact that the addressee is told how to “join” the caravan and that the caravan moves to “that mysterious realm” (i.e. an afterlife). “Sinners” is too specific an answer, and none of the other choices can be substituted into the poem and make as much sense.
Passage adapted from William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis” (1817)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
I saw thee once—once only—years ago:
I must not say how many—but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, (5)
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe— (10)
In line 5, what is meant by “a precipitate pathway”?
While “precipitation” often describes rain, “precipitous” means sudden or hasty. In the context of a soul’s ascension to heaven, it stands to reason that “precipitous” might imply directness and a lack of delays. None of the other choices make sense in context.
Passage adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s “To Helen” (1831)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
I saw thee once—once only—years ago:
I must not say how many—but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven, (5)
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness and slumber,
Upon the upturn'd faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe— (10)
Based on context, what is the “silvery-silken veil of light” (line 6)?
This question requires reading all the way back to line 3, where the sense of the sentence originates: “…from out / A full-orbed moon… There fell a silvery-silken veil of light…” The only light that falls from the moon is moonbeams.
Passage adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s “To Helen” (1831)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
1 Infer the wilds which next pertain.
2 Though travel here be still a walk,
3 Small heart was theirs for easy talk.
4 Oblivious of the bridle-rein
5 Rolfe fell to Lethe altogether,
6 Bewitched by that uncanny weather
7 Of sultry cloud. And home-sick grew
8 The banker. In his reverie blue
9 The cigarette, a summer friend,
10 Went out between his teeth—could lend
11 No solace, soothe him nor engage.
12 And now disrelished he each word
13 Of sprightly, harmless persiflage
14 Wherewith young Glaucon here would fain
15 Evince a jaunty disregard.
16 But hush betimes o’ertook the twain—
17 The more impressive, it may be,
18 For that the senior, somewhat spent,
19 Florid overmuch and corpulent,
20 Labored in lungs, and audibly.
(1876)
What is meant when the cigarette is described as "a summer friend" (line 9)?
The "banker" (line 8) who is smoking this cigarette is in a depressed mood. We are told that he is "home-sick" (line 7), and that he is indulging in a "blue" reverie (line 8). In lines 10-11 we are told that the cigarette cannot "lend him solace," "soothe" him, or "engage" him. In short, the cigarette is not pleasing or comforting to him in his sadness. The description of the cigarette as "a summer friend" (line 9), then, means that smoking is enjoyable to this person in "summer" in a figurative, emotional sense--it is an enjoyable pastime only when he is already happy.
Passage adapted from Herman Melville's epic poem Clarel (1876).
Compare your answer with the correct one above
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.
But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
The second stanza of the poem offers a view of solitude that can best be described as _________________
Byron describes a sense of solitude in the midst of a crowd. Physically, this does not make sense, but since he is describing a sense of of both intellectual and emotional isolation, it is possible to be in the midst of a crowd and feel isolated. Thus, "paradox" is the best answer choice.
Passage adapted from George Gordon (Lord Byron)'s "Solitude" (1813)
Compare your answer with the correct one above
1. Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
2. Better to see your temple worn,
3. Than to forget to follow, follow,
4. After the sound of a silver horn.
5. Better to bind your brow with willow
6. And follow, follow until you die,
7. Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
8. Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.
9. Better to see your cheek grow sallow
10. And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
11. Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
12. After the milk-white hounds of the moon.
The images in the poem are meant to convey which of the following?
I Someone who has lost the capacity for intense experience
II Someone who is imprisoned in an insane asylum
III Someone who revels in passion
The poem’s theme is the value of remaining open to life experience, even at the cost of grief and old age. The author contrasts images of life lived passionately (the moonlit hunt, the silver horn, the brow bound with willow) with images of life lived in unconscious comfort (the golden pillow, the sleeper’s obliviousness to the passing hunt.) We are shown both alternatives: the person who revels in passion and the person who has lost the capacity for intense experience. There is no mention of an insane asylum or of imprisonment.
Passage adapted from Eleanor Wylie's "A Madman's Song" (1921)
Compare your answer with the correct one above