Semester One

Question 1

How can the reader tell that “Beowulf” is a legendary story?

Answer 1

The hero is described as someone greater than all other men

Question 2

In “Beowulf”, why does Beowulf sail with his chosen companions to Hrothgar’s kingdom?

Answer 2

To help Hrothgar by destroying a monster

Question 3

What line from “Beowulf” contains an example of kenning?

Answer 3

"’…I have come so far, / Oh shelterer of warriors and your people’s loved friends, / That this one favor you should not refuse me…’”

Question 4

From what fact can the reader infer that Beowulf is honorable?

Answer 4

Beowulf refuses to use weapons because Grendel uses none

Question 5

What does this line from “Beowulf” mean?

‘The monster’s thoughts were as quick as his greed or his claws’

Answer 5

He has intelligence

Question 6

At the end of the battle in “Beowulf”, the poet attributes Grendel’s defeat to what?

Answer 6

God’s power

Question 7

Which of the following best summarizes the theme of “Beowulf”?

Answer 7

Valor will triumph

Question 8

What statement would you include in a summary of the first section of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”?

Answer 8

The Green Knight arrives at King Arthur’s court in the middle of a New Year’s Eve feast

Question 9

What events from “SGGK” conveys a sense of the supernatural?

Answer 9

The Green Knight does not die from Sir Gawain’s blow

Question 10

What primary plot elements characteristic of medieval romances is missing from the excerpt from SGGK

Answer 10

A damsel in distress

Question 11

In SGGK, why does Sir Gawain volunteer to fight the Green Knight?

Answer 11

He wants to protect the honor of his King and fellow Knights

Question 12

What events in SGGK represent a deviation from the ideals of chivalry?

Answer 12

Sir Gawain keeps the magic girdle

Question 13

What character could you leave out of a summary of SGGK?

Answer 13

Guinevere

Question 14

Sir Gawain’s main internal conflict in SGGK involves his guilt over what?

Answer 14

Violating the chivalric code

Question 15

What saying best paraphrases what the Green Knight says to Sir Gawain at the end of SGGK?

Answer 15

Admit your mistakes and move on

Question 16

What is the central theme of Macbeth Act I?

Answer 16

Betrayal

Question 17

“Macbeth” and other Elizabethan plays represented a radical shift in English drama because they were what?

Answer 17

Not about religious themes

Question 18

Based upon the information in Act I of “Macbeth”, what appears to be Macbeth’s character flaw?

Answer 18

A desire for power

Question 19

During the Elizabethan period, theater companies began to do what?

Answer 19

Use permanent performance spaces

Question 20

What important role do the witches okay in Act I of “Macbeth”?

Answer 20

They foreshadow events

Question 21

Based upon information in Act I of “Macbeth”, what can you infer about King Duncan?

Answer 21

He places a high value on bravery and loyalty

Question 22

What of the following best describes Macbeth’s feelings about the possible assassination of King Duncan in Act I?

Answer 22

Tortured ambivalence

Question 23

In Act I of “Macbeth”, why does Lady Macbeth think Macbeth has a poor chance of achieving power?

Answer 23

He is not ruthless enough

Question 24

What is the central idea of “Macbeth” Act II?

Answer 24

A murderer must live with his conscience

Question 25

For what of the following reasons did Shakespeare probably choose to write "Macbeth" in blank verse?

Answer 25

To create an affect of natural speech

Question 26

In "Macbeth" Act II, Scene ii, Lady Macbeth's purpose in drugging the servants is what?

Answer 26

So that they will sleep through King Duncan's murder

Question 27

What characterizes the line from "Macbeth" | 'This night's great business into my dispatch' as blank verse?

Answer 27

It has ten syllables with the stress falling on every second syllable

Question 28

What symbol(s) in "Macbeth" Act II, Scene ii, signals that the murder has been accomplished?

Answer 28

The owl's scream and the crickets' cries

Question 29

In "Macbeth" Act II, Macbeth declares he will 'sleep no more' because he believes what?

Answer 29

His conscience will never let him rest

Question 30

In "Macbeth" Act II, what does Macbeth really mean when he indicates that the blood on his hands will redden all the seas?

Answer 30

It is a comment on his profound guilt

Question 31

In 'The Prologue' to "The Canterbury Takes", Chaucer uses pilgrimage primarily as a device to accomplish what?

Answer 31

Frame the stories told by individual characters

Question 32

The narrator in "The Canterbury Tales", is portrayed as what?

Answer 32

Naive and observant

Question 33

The narrator in "The Canterbury Tales", says that he plans to 'give account of all their words and dealings, / Using their very phrases as they fell.' For which kind of characterization would an author provide such details?

Answer 33

Indirect characterization

Question 34

What best describes Chaucer's attitude toward the Nun in 'The Canterbury Tales'?

Answer 34

Amused tolerance

Question 35

In "Macbeth" Act III, to persuade the two murderers to agree to kill Banquo, Macbeth tells them what?

Answer 35

That Banquo has been the cause of all their misery

Question 36

In "Macbeth", Act III, Scene ii, what is the connotation of the word 'scorpions' in this line? 'O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife'

Answer 36

Horrors

Question 37

Act III of "Macbeth" serves mainly to do what?

Answer 37

Expose Macbeth's mounting troubles

Question 38

In "Macbeth" Act III, what is the cause of Macbeth's irrational behavior at the banquet?

Answer 38

His guilty conscience

Question 39

When Macbeth says to Lady Macbeth in Act III, Scene iv, 'We are yet but young in deed' he means that they are what?

Answer 39

New to the ways of crime

Question 40

In "Macbeth" Act III, Macbeth's guilt causing him to imagine he sees Banquo's ghost at the banquet is an example of what?

Answer 40

Internal conflict

Question 41

By the end of Act III of "Macbeth", how has Macbeth changed since the beginning of the play?

Answer 41

He is now quick to use treachery to suit his ends

Question 42

A major purpose of Act IV of "Macbeth" is to foreshadow events related to what?

Answer 42

Macbeth's downfall

Question 43

In Act IV of "Macbeth" when the witch says, 'Something wicked this way comes,' you know what?

Answer 43

Even the witches now consider Macbeth evil

Question 44

After visiting the witches in Act IV of "Macbeth", why does Macbeth initially change his mind and decide not to have Macduff killed?

Answer 44

He knows Macduff has fled to England

Question 45

What best describes how Shakespeare portrays Macduff's son in Act IV of "Macbeth"?

Answer 45

Questioning and courageous

Question 46

In "Macbeth", Act IV, Scene iii, what finally convinces Malcolm that Macduff is loyal?

Answer 46

Macduff's noble despair for his country

Question 47

What is the main message of "Macbeth", Act V, Scene i, which includes Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene?

Answer 47

A guilty conscience is not easily mended

Question 48

In "Macbeth", Act V, Scene iii, what does Macbeth's behavior toward the servant who comes to deliver a message ultimate,y show about Macbeth's character?

Answer 48

He has grown brutal

Question 49

In "Macbeth" when Macbeth reveals in Act V, Scene v, that he has grown impervious to fear and horror, he is underscoring the play's theme of what?

Answer 49

Destructiveness of blind ambition

Question 50

At what point in "Macbeth", Act V, does first begin to realize that he has been tricked by the prophecies?

Answer 50

When he learns that Birnam Wood is moving toward the castle

Question 51

In Act V of "Macbeth", in what way does Macbeth revert to his former self?

Answer 51

He fights with courage and skill

Question 52

What is the message of "Holy Sonnet 10"?

Answer 52

Death can never triumph because faith grants eternal life

Question 53

Why can "Holy Sonnet 10" be considered a metaphysical conceit?

Answer 53

An idea is debated by likening it to an arrogant but finally powerless tyrant

Question 54

Why is the seemingly contradictory phrase 'Death, thou shalt die' actually true within the context of "Holy Sonnet 10"?

Answer 54

After death, a Christian awakes to eternal life

Question 55

What pair of ideas are the subjects of John Donne's "Song"?

Answer 55

Love and death

Question 56

In John Donne's "Song", the lines 'Yesternight the sun went hence, / And yet is here today' are an example of what?

Answer 56

A paradox

Question 57

What is the theme of the excerpt from "Paradise Lost"?

Answer 57

Good and evil

Question 58

Milton's epic poem "Paradise Lost" expresses values of seventeenth-century Christian England in that it reflects a prevalent what?

Answer 58

Heaven and Hell

Question 59

What line describes the style in which "Paradise Lost" is written?

Answer 59

Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Question 60

What is the main clause in the following lines from "Paradise Lost"? 'And chiefly thou O Spirit, that dost prefer / Before all temples the upright heart and pure, / Instruct me, for thou know'st...'

Answer 60

Instruct me

Question 61

The lines 'With loss of Eden, till one greater Man / Restore us, and regain the blissful seat' from "Paradise Lost" allude to what?

Answer 61

Coming of Christ

Question 62

What best summarizes the predominant theme of "Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey"?

Answer 62

The renewing and uplifting power of nature

Question 63

Wordsworth's image '...of some hermit's cave, where by his fire / The hermit sits alone' in "LCFWATA" could be said to reflect the Romantics' rejection of the Neoclassical emphasis on ____.

Answer 63

Society

Question 64

In "LCFMATA", Wordsworth describes his second visit to the abbey as more what than the first.

Answer 64

Reflective

Question 65

"LCFMATA" is a poem that celebrates the power of what?

Answer 65

Memory

Question 66

What lines in "LCFMATA" most directly express Wordsworth's interest in the discovery of the mystical or the supernatural through nature?

Answer 66

"...a sense sublime / Of something... / Whose dwelling is the light of setting Suns.."

Question 67

What sentence best describes the meaning of these words from "LCFMATA"? 'I cannot paint / What then I was...

Answer 67

I cannot describe what I was like when I was young

Question 68

"LCFMATA" is easy to recognize as a Romantic poem because it has what characteristic?

Answer 68

Describes the narrator's emotions about a landscape

Question 69

At the end of "The World Is Too Much With Us," Wordsworth demonstrates by his example the Romantic belief in what?

Answer 69

Transforming power of mind

Question 70

What is Wordsworth's main subject in "The World Is Too Much With Us"?

Answer 70

The frenzied quest for wealth

Question 71

What sentence best describes how the Romantic ideal applies to these lines from "London, 1802"? 'Oh! raise us up, return to us again; And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.'

Answer 71

Romantics believed humanity was better in the last, before it turned away from nature