Poetry III
130 soru
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, "Anthem for Doomed Youth" by Wilfred Owen, first published in 1920:
What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
— Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
Which of the following best describes the function of the stanzaic division between the octave (lines 1–8) and the sestet (lines 9–14)?
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 poem carefully:
The Cabinet and the Canopy
Within the velvet-lined mahogany drawer,
Each pinned wing rests, a silent, numbered ghost,
Assigned a genus, cataloged, secure,
And shielded from the damp along the coast.
No wind disturbs the glass, no shadow falls
Across the varnished pine and brass-bound walls;
Here, order reigns in quiet, dustless sleep,
A captured kingdom that the scholars keep.
But just beyond the frame of leaded pane,
The oak tree shakes its wild, unnumbered green,
Drinking the sudden fury of the rain,
Where wings of living sapphire dart unseen.
No hand can count the leaves that rise and fall,
No cabinet can hold the tempest's call;
The canopy expands, unchecked and free,
A chaotic, endless, breathing majesty.
The juxtaposition between the cabinet (lines 1–8) and the canopy (lines 9–16) primarily serves to do which of the following?
The Iron Gate
The rusted hinge resists the morning wind, (1)
Holding the silent garden from the street;
Within, the overgrown and wild-vined paths
Keep secrets that the stones will not repeat.
Without, the iron bars, though stained with scale, (5)
Stand guard against the dust of passing wheels,
As if a boundary drawn in ancient iron
Could freeze the quiet changes that it seals.
Yet through the grates, the reaching ivy crawls,
Escaping where the hinges slowly yield, (10)
To show how small a barrier of iron
Protects the wildness of the inner field.
In the poem, the iron gate functions primarily as a symbol of which of the following?
Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.
The Aviary
Behind the rusted wire, shadows stir, (1)
A sudden rush of wings, a flash of red,
Where once the wild and golden songbirds were,
Now silent shapes of gray and brown instead.
The heavy lock hangs useless at the gate, (5)
For none attempt to breach the iron screen;
The captives do not struggle with their fate,
Nor dream of branches they have never seen.
A single feather falls upon the stone, (9)
A quiet testament to flight denied,
Leaving the empty sky to stand alone
Beyond the cage where song and spirit died.
In the poem, the "heavy lock" that "hangs useless at the gate" (line 5) functions primarily as a symbol of which of the following?
The Anvil
Upon the workshop floor it stands alone, (1)
A silent block of iron, cold and gray,
Which bears the heavy hammer’s steady tone,
And shapes the glowing iron day by day.
It does not strike, it does not seek to break, (5)
But holds its ground against the burning blow,
And from the sparks that fly and paths they take,
A silent strength is all it has to show.
Based on the poem above, which of the following traits does the anvil primarily symbolize?
Read the following poem carefully, then answer the question.
The Vault and the Vine
Within the cathedral's silent stone,
The vaulted ribs in order stand,
A static heaven made of bone,
Chiseled by a master's hand;
Here, geometry maintains its peace,
And arches bid all wildness cease.
But just beyond the leaded pane,
A green rebellion starts to climb,
Unchecked by chisel or by plane,
It marks a different sort of time,
With spiral tendrils, soft and green,
That crack the mortar in between.
Which of the following best describes the primary effect of the juxtaposition between the cathedral's interior in the first stanza and the climbing vine in the second stanza?
Read the following lines from John Donne’s seventeenth-century poem "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" carefully before choosing your answer:
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.
And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
In the passage, how does the speaker use the conceit of the "stiff twin compasses" to describe the connection between the speaker and the beloved?
Read the following poem carefully:
The Reliquary and the River
Inside the quiet vault, the golden case
Holds fast the bone and ruby under glass;
No speck of dust disturbs the sacred space,
Where centuries in frozen silence pass.
But outward, past the cathedral’s heavy door,
The muddy river swells and sweeps the clay,
It carves the bank and floods the valley floor,
Unbound by any hand that bids it stay.
How does the structural juxtaposition between the first and second stanzas contribute to the poem’s thematic meaning?
Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.
The Astrolabe
Beneath the scholar's trembling hand it lies, (1)
A brass-bound sky of concentric rings,
Where stars are pinned like golden butterflies
Or frozen in the turn of metal wings.
He tracks the phantom courses of the moon, (5)
And reads the rising of a silent sphere,
While on the hearth, the dying embers croon
The passing of another shadowed year.
This coordinate of brass can map the night,
But leaves the inner dark without a guide, (10)
Where hope sits waiting for a truer light,
Unmoved by alignments of the tide.
In the context of the poem, the astrolabe (referred to as a "brass-bound sky" in line 2 and a "coordinate of brass" in line 9) functions primarily as a symbol of which of the following?
Read the following poem carefully before choosing your answer.
The Leaded Pane
The heavy lead confines the ruby pane, (1)
Holding the crimson fire in its place,
Lest the bright color flood the aisle in vain
And lose the outline of the sacred face.
Yet when the sun beats hot against the east, (5)
The glowing glass no longer seems to bind;
The captive light, from stony walls released,
Spills bloody crowns upon the floor behind.
Thus bound in lead, the brightest hues remain, (9)
Shape given only by the dark constraint.
In the poem, the "heavy lead" (line 1) and the "dark constraint" (line 10) function symbolically to suggest which of the following?
Read the poem below:
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
How does the structural shift in the concluding couplet contribute to the development of the poem's thematic argument?
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 poem "No Second Troy" (1910) by William Butler Yeats:
Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
In the context of the poem as a whole, the allusion in the final line ("Was there another Troy for her to burn?") primarily serves to do which of the following?
Read the following excerpt from William Butler Yeats’s poem "Leda and the Swan" (1923):
A sudden blow: the great wings beating still
Above the staggering girl, her thighs caressed
By the dark webs, her nape caught in his bill,
He holds her helpless breast upon his breast.
How can those terrified vague fingers push
The feathered glory from her loosening thighs?
And how can body, laid in that white rush,
But feel the strange heart beating where it lies?
A shudder in the loins engenders there
The broken wall, the burning roof and tower
And Agamemnon dead.
Being so caught up,
Did she put on his knowledge with his power
Before the indifferent beak could let her drop?
In the third stanza, the speaker's allusion to "The broken wall, the burning roof and tower / And Agamemnon dead" functions intertextually to do which of the following?
Read the following poem:
I draw the shuttle through the silent warp,
Not to delay the suitors at the sill,
Nor to preserve a hearth for one who drifts
Where sirens call and lesser currents pull.
The shroud I weave is not for Laertes’ limbs,
But for the memory of the sail we knew;
With every thread unspooled at dead of night,
I unbuild the myth of his returning tread.
Let Ithaca believe I count the hours;
This loom is not a tally of my grief,
But a quiet forge where I reshape the shore
To bar the wanderer from the gate he left.
Which of the following best describes the primary function of the speaker’s subversion of the classical myth of Penelope?
Read the following excerpt from T. S. Eliot’s poem "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" (1915):
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it towards some overwhelming question,
To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: "That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all."
In the context of the speaker's psychological state, which of the following best describes the thematic function of the allusion to Lazarus?
Read the following excerpt from John Keats's 1818 poem "Endymion" before answering the question.
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
In the context of the passage, how does the enjambment in lines 2–4 ("never / Pass... / A bower") function to support the speaker's assertion about beauty?