Poetry II

Read the following lines from William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 29" (published 1609):

When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

Which of the following best describes the effect of the syntactic structure across the first twelve lines of the poem?

Read the following passage carefully before choosing your answer.

(1) The copper leaves are shaken from the bough
(2) By winds that carry scent of coming frost;
(3) We gather what remains of summer’s wealth—
(4) A few late roses, pale and overcast
(5) With morning dew—and wonder how the year
(6) Could slip away so silent and so swift,
(7) Leaving us here to watch the shadows grow
(8) Across the lawn.

In lines 3–5 ("We gather . . . dew—"), the em dashes are used primarily to achieve which of the following effects?

Read the following lines from William Wordsworth's poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (1807):

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:

Which of the following best describes the primary function of personifying the daffodils and the waves in this passage?

Read the following lines from William Blake’s poem "To Autumn" (1783):

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stain'd
With the blood of the grape, pass not our gates;
But stay beneath our shady bower, that we
May read to thee, and sing thy gentle praise.
Here, sit thee down, and in our longing ears
Tune thy jolly voice, and let us hear thee sing;

In the passage, the speaker’s personification of Autumn primarily serves to achieve which of the following effects?

1 The bellows gasp, the furnace throat flings wide
2 A yellow fury, where the sand and ash
3 In liquid purgatory surge and clash,
4 Till drawn upon the iron tube, untried,
5 The glowing globule hangs, a heavy tear.
6 Here muscle wars with heat: the chest expands,
7 The heavy breath is blown through iron bands,
8 To force the molten swelling to appear.
9 And then, a sudden stillness rules the air—
10 The glowing dome grows pale, its fury spent,
11 In quiet curves of cooling grace content,
12 A fragile shell, crystalline and fair.
13 The fire that raged within is locked in stone,
14 And what was chaos stands, a shape alone.

Which of the following best describes the shift that occurs between the octave (lines 1–8) and the sestet (lines 9–14)?

Read the following lines from Emily Dickinson's poem "The Moon was but a Chin of Gold":

The Moon was but a Chin of Gold
A Night or two ago—
And now she turns her perfect Face
Upon the World below—

In the stanza, the personification of the moon primarily serves to do which of the following?

Read the following lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem 'The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls' (1880):

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Which of the following best describes the function of the personification in the line 'The little waves, with their soft, white hands'?

Read the following poem, 'The Desk-Bound Giant' (2024), carefully:

The clock strikes eight, and once again he stands
Before the desk of spreadsheets and of files,
To push the heavy stone with weary hands,
Across the screen in dry, endless miles.
Though no peak crowns this corporate, daily climb,
Like Sisyphus he starts the task anew,
A silent captive of the clockwork time,
Under the fluorescent ceiling's hue.

In the context of the poem, which of the following best describes the function of the allusion to Sisyphus?

Read the following poem by Christina Rossetti (1872):

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling,
The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads,
The wind is passing by.

In the second stanza, the phrase 'the trees bow down their heads' functions primarily to do which of the following?

Read the following excerpt from a poem:

(1) The loom repeats its shuttle-song, a thread
(2) Of silver drawn through warp of dusty grey;
(3) We watch the pattern grow beneath the dead
(4) Heavy iron beam—and then, a sudden stray
(5) Snap of the cord dissolves the neat design
(6) Into a wild, unmastered skein of twine.

In lines 4-5 ('and then... design'), the enjambment between the words 'stray' and 'Snap' primarily serves to achieve which of the following effects?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

1 The iron shears are cold against the vine,
2 A ruthless blade to crop the summer’s state;
3 I sever what was sweet and once divine,
4 And leave the shattered branch to meet its fate.
5 It seems a needless wound we here inflict,
6 To strip the trellised arch of all its shade,
7 And by a winter law, severe and strict,
8 Undo the gentle work the spring had made.
9 But look! Within the dark and frozen wood,
10 The silent sap prepares a brighter birth;
11 This wounding is a promise, understood
12 By those who trust the cycle of the earth.

In the poem, the shift in tone after line 8 ('Undo... made') chiefly reveals a transition from which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer:

Each evening, she returns to sweep the floor
And stack the dusty volumes on the shelf,
As if the simple closure of the door
Could keep the world from finding out itself.
She seeks the draught that silent Lethe yields,
To wash the crowded streets from out her head,
And walk in memory through those silent fields
Where no unbidden words are ever said.
Yet every dawn the heavy waters clear,
The tide of memory rushes back again;
The quiet room becomes a theater
For all the waking world’s persistent pain.

In the second stanza, how does the allusion to "Lethe" function to develop the theme of the poem?

Read the following poem by Claude McKay carefully before choosing your answer.

America (1921)

[1] Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
[2] And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
[3] Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
[4] I love this cultured hell that tests my youth!
[5] Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
[6] Giving me strength erect against her hate.
[7] Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood,
[8] Yet as a rebel fronts a king in state,
[9] I stand within her walls with not a shred
[10] Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
[11] Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
[12] And see her might and granite wonders there,
[13] Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
[14] Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.

In McKay's sonnet, how does the relationship between the structural quatrains (lines 1–12) and the concluding couplet (lines 13–14) contribute to the development of the poem's theme?

Consider the poem provided below:

1 Backstage, the velvet silence holds its breath,
2 A dusty dark where simulated death
3 And paper crowns in wooden boxes lie.
4 I count the minutes, watching from the sly,
5 A nervous shadow in the wings, alone,
6 My cold hands tracing shapes of hollow stone,
7 Rehearsing whispers in the painted gloom.
8 But then the prompt-cue sounds across the room—
9 The curtain rises, flooding me with light,
10 And thousands wait, a sea of eyes tonight;
11 I step ahead, no longer holding back,
12 To claim the kingdom from the velvet black.

Which of the following best describes how the shift in line 8 affects the development of the speaker's attitude?

Read the following poem excerpt carefully before choosing your answer.

(1) The iron rails are sinking
(2) into the damp, black loam,
(3) no longer holding the weight
(4) of steel or distance.
(5) Here, the wild mustard seeds
(6) have scattered themselves
(7) without permission,
(8) bursting through the gravel
(9) in yellow, unruly shocks.
(10) A crow alights on a rusted spike,
(11) its cry sharp and unmeasured—
(12) a ragged note
(13) that does not wait
(14) for the next bar to begin.

In the context of the poem, how does the open form and enjambment of lines 10–14 ('A crow... begin') reinforce the passage's thematic focus?

Read the following poem by Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) carefully before choosing your answer.

Remember (1862)

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you planned:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late then to counsel or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

In the poem, the structural transition between the octave (lines 1–8) and the sestet (lines 9–14) primarily serves to do which of the following?

Read the following excerpt from a poem carefully before choosing your answer.

(1) The brass tube turns, a cold and heavy stem
(2) That yields to fingers numb with midnight air;
(3) We track the dying spark, the final gem
(4) Of some lost crown—and find it is not there
(5) Where we had mapped the light. A sudden space
(6) Confronts the lens: the dark, unmeasured deep
(7) Extends its silent reign, without a trace
(8) Of what we strove so fruitlessly to keep.

In the context of the excerpt, the enjambment between line 5 and line 6 ("A sudden space / Confronts") most directly serves to do which of the following?

Read the following poem by John Donne (first published in 1633) carefully before choosing your answer.

Death, be not proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, [5]
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell, [10]
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

In line 9 of the poem, how does the structural shift (the "volta") contribute to the development of the speaker's argument?

Read the following passage carefully before choosing your answer.

(1) The ink-line traces where the border stands:
(2) A river forced to run inside the grid,
(3) And mountains, captured in a hatch of gray,
(4) Obey the rule. But where the paper folds,
(5) The crease—a sudden, unintended rift—
(6) Disrupts the world; the neat divisions fall
(7) Away, and wilder lands bleed through the gap.

In the context of the passage, the enjambment between line 6 and line 7 ('fall / Away') primarily serves to do which of the following?

Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.

(1) The river does not hesitate
(2) at the bend where the willows
(3) dip their grey fingers,
(4) but spills over the rocks,
(5) a sudden widening
(6) of light and sound
(7) that carries the debris
(8) of last season's growth:
(9) broken twigs,
(10) a single torn glove,
(11) the memory of ice
(12) that held it fast in January.

In the poem, how does the structural layout of lines 9–11 ("broken twigs... memory of ice") contribute to the poem's thematic development?