Tone, Voice, and Speaker Persona
18 questions
Read the following poem, "No, Thank You, John" (1862) by Christina Rossetti:
I never said I loved you, John:
No fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a show as pale
As quite a ghost?
I dare say Meg or Moll would take
Pity upon you, if you'd ask:
And bid you shear, as she has shorn,
Your tasks.
I have no heart?—Perhaps I have not;
But then you're matching hearts with stone:
I'd rather answer "No" to fifty Johns
Than answer "Yes" to one.
Which of the following best describes the speaker’s tone and persona in the poem?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The Cartographer’s Confession
Our borders are but threads of ink we stretch
Across the wilderness we cannot tame;
With compass and with rule we strive to sketch
The wild, unreckoned lands and give them name.
How grandly does the gilded crest declare
The sovereign's reach across the azure main!
Yet wind and tide dismantle what we swear,
And rivers twist to mock our neat domain.
We trace the lines of conquest, bold and neat,
Confining mountain ranges to the page,
While in the dust beneath our mapping feet,
The silent hills outlive the monarch's rage.
I draw the world in lines of gold and blue,
And sell the lie that what I draw is true.
Which of the following best characterizes the shift in the speaker's voice and attitude over the course of the poem?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The Lighthouse Keeper's Ledger
I log the wind, I count the rising tide,
And watch the ships that safely pass us by;
Within this granite tower I abide,
Beneath a cold and indifferent sky.
They think me lonely in my quiet routine,
Sweeping the lens and polishing the glass,
But in this steady, solitary scene,
I find a peace that nothing can surpass.
Based on the poem, the speaker's attitude toward their solitary life in the lighthouse is best described as which of the following?
The Botanist's Herbarium
Here lie the victims of my neat arrest,
Each leaf pressed flat, each petal dried to stone,
Their wildness conquered, catalogued, and dressed
In tidy ink on cards of heavy bone.
I called it science when I clipped the stem
And held the living green against the light,
Believing I did honor unto them
By rescuing their colors from the night.
Yet looking at this pale, silent parade,
I see no triumphs in my quiet room;
I am a jailer in a house of shade,
Who traded summer for a sterile bloom.
In the poem above, which of the following best describes how the speaker's tone and perspective shift from the first two stanzas to the final stanza?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The Abandoned Greenhouse
Here where the glass has shattered to the floor,
And wild briars tangle round the rusted door,
I keep my quiet watch, though none remain
To shield the tender seedlings from the rain.
The grapes have withered on the dusty vine,
And ivy claims this broken roof of mine.
Yet in the drafty chill, a stubborn green
Still pushes through the cracks, unseen, clean.
They think me ruined, empty, cast aside,
A hollow shell where summer’s glory died;
But in the soil, the patient roots run deep,
And what was sown, the earth will surely keep.
Which of the following best describes the speaker’s persona in the poem?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The Shepherd’s Watch
The valley sleeps beneath the early dew,
And silent stars begin their nightly round.
I walk the path that older shepherds knew,
My quiet footsteps falling on the ground.
They say the world has moved to grander schemes,
Of iron wheels and cities built of stone;
Yet here I tend my sheep and dream my dreams,
Content to watch the turning hills alone.
Let others chase the gold of hurried streets;
I find my wealth where sky and pasture meets.
Based on the poem, which of the following best describes the speaker’s attitude toward their solitary life?
Read the following poem carefully:
The Surveyor of Ruins
I mark the cracks within the temple wall,
And map the dust where golden arches stood;
I note which ancient pillars next will fall,
Measuring the shadows in the dying wood.
Do not believe I mourn the empire's end,
Or weep for statues swallowed by the clay;
I only calculate what forces bend,
And trace the geometry of slow decay.
No grief resides within my leather book,
Just numbers marching down a silent page.
Which of the following best describes the speaker’s tone toward the decay of the empire?
Read the following excerpt from Thomas Hardy’s poem "The Ruined Maid" (1901) carefully.
"O 'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?" —
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.
— "You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!" —
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.
— "At home in the barton you said 'thee' and 'thou,'
And 'thik oon,' and 'theäs oon,' and 'tother'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!" —
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.
Which of the following best describes how the relationship between the speaker’s voice and the authorial tone functions in the passage?
Read the following poem carefully before choosing the best answer.
The Gilded Automaton
Observe this brass philosopher, designed
To mock the steady ticking of the mind;
How smoothly gears of polished silver slide
To measure griefs we vainly seek to hide.
It does not weep when seasons fall away,
Nor count the cost of our prolonged delay,
But strikes the hour with cold, indifferent grace,
A gold smile etched upon its metal face.
And yet, what comfort in this iron law,
To find a heartbeat free of human flaw!
I wind the spring, and wish my breast could hold
A core as quiet, and a hand as cold.
Which of the following best describes the development of the speaker's tone and persona over the course of the poem?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The Chimney Sweeper (1789)
When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.
There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved: so I said
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."
And so he was quiet, and that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black.
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins and set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
And wash in a river, and shine in the Sun.
Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,
And got with our bags and our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm;
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.
Which of the following best describes the relationship between the speaker’s persona and the author's thematic perspective in the final stanza?
Read the following passage from John Donne's "The Triple Fool" (1633):
I am two fools, I know,
For loving, and for saying so
In whining poetry;
But where's that wise man, that would not be I,
If she would not grieve?
Then as th' earth's inward narrow crooked lanes
Do purge sea water's fretful salt away,
I thought, if I could draw my pains
Through rhyme's vexation, I should them allay.
Grief brought to numbers cannot be so fierce,
For he tames it, that fetters it in verse.
Which of the following best describes the shift in the speaker's tone over the course of the passage?
Carefully read the poem below, which focuses on the work of museum conservators, and answer the question that follows.
The Conservator's Ledger
We place the porcelain carefully on the shelf,
And catalog each fracture with a pen,
Lest we should run the risk of grief itself
Disturbing order we have made for men.
5 The dust is quiet, smelling of the room
Where someone wept before the clay was fired;
We measure shadows in the cabinet's gloom
And label what the long-deceased desired.
It is a sacred custody, we claim,
10 To keep these fragile vessels from the air,
Yet in the ledger, registering a name,
We trace the shape of our own long despair:
A quiet trade of beauty for a wall,
Which shields the living, lest the ruins fall.
In the poem, how does the speaker’s shifting persona develop the thematic conflict between clinical preservation and emotional reality?
Read the following poem carefully.
The Clockmaker's Apology
Here, in the coppered twilight of the shop,
I teach the stubborn gears to hold their breath,
To divide the infinite flow, and make it stop
In neat, repeating intervals of death.
My patrons buy this gold-cased symmetry,
Believing they have bought the master's soul;
They wind the spring and watch the hands agree,
Content to keep the fragments of the whole.
Yet when the chime rings out its precise knell,
I do not hear the triumph of my art,
But the slow cracking of a hollow shell
That marks the pulse of a mechanical heart.
They think I rule the hours from my throne;
I only carve the cage that locks my own.
Which of the following best describes the development of the speaker's tone over the course of the poem?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The World Is Too Much With Us (1807)
The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.
Which of the following best describes the development of the speaker's voice over the course of the poem?
Read the following poem by Thomas Hardy carefully before answering the question.
The Man He Killed (1902)
"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!
"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed him in his place.
"I shot him dead because —
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although
"He thought he'd list, perhaps,
Off-hand like — just as I —
Was out of work — had sold his traps ���
No other reason why.
"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."
In the third and fourth stanzas ("I shot him... reason why"), how do the speaker's hesitant syntax and self-correction shape the poem's tone and voice?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The Glassblower’s Breath
I gather the fire on the iron rod,
A heavy drop of liquid sun,
And breathe a bubble, thin and wide,
To frame the light when day is done.
They call it art, this burning sweat,
This shaping of a fragile dome;
But I see only sand and heat
Constraining what was wild and free.
Yet when the cooling crystal clears,
And rings beneath the hammer’s blow,
I hear the echo of the years
I poured into the furnace glow.
Which of the following best describes the shift in the speaker's tone over the course of the poem?
Read the following excerpt from George Herbert's poem "The Collar" (1633) carefully:
I struck the board, and cried, "No more;
I will abroad!
What? shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free, free as the road,
5 Loose as the wind, as large as store.
Shall I be still in suit?
Have I no harvest but a thorn
To let me blood, and not restore
What I have lost with cordial fruit?
10 Sure there was wine
Before my sighs did dry it; there was corn
Before my tears did drown it.
Is the year lost to me?
Have I no bays to crown it,
15 No flowers, no garlands gay? All blasted?
All wasted?"
The series of rhetorical questions in lines 6��16 ("Shall I... wasted?") contributes to the speaker's persona by doing which of the following?
Read the following poem carefully before answering the question.
The Scribe of the Archive
I ink the names of kings who left no trace,
And trace the boundaries of forgotten lands;
I give the ancient dead a quiet face,
And place the faded scrolls in patient hands.
How grand, they say, to hold the keys of time,
To walk with phantoms through the dusty hall!
Yet in this chamber of decay and rhyme,
I only watch the shadows rise and fall.
No crown I save can warm this freezing stone,
No charted empire yields a breath of air;
I write of thousand lives, yet sit alone,
Enslaved to histories I cannot share.
Which of the following best describes the shift in the speaker's attitude toward their role as a scribe?