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ENGLISH & AMERICAN LITERATURE
My Heart Leaps Up
William Wordsworth
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
1. What does the poem celebrate as shown in line 1-2?
A. sadness in death
B. reverence for nature
C. familial bonding
D. sense of foreboding
The best answer is B. “My heart leaps up…” connotes a strong love of or reverence for nature as represented by the rainbow. It shows the persona’s extreme happiness, if not awe, with nature so he hopes to maintain natural piety until his death. Options A, C, and D all focus on different subjects.
2. What does the persona wish in the last two lines?
A. that he continues to be pious
B. that he be a child once again
C. that he continues to be connected to nature
D. that he fulfills his duties and responsibilities
The best answer is C. The last two lines provide an apt conclusion to the strong reverence for nature presented in lines1-2. In lines 3-6, the persona explains that he has been bound to nature since birth and he hopes to be until his death. Options A and B both pick on key words piety and child to provide distracters, while option D proves a broad option that does not appear in the text.
3. What figure of speech does Wordsworth use in line 7?
A. paradox
B. metonymy
C. oxymoron
D. allusion
The correct answer is A. Line 7 is among the most famous paradoxes in literature. A paradox presents a seemingly contradictory idea, but turns out to be true upon closer analysis. “The child is father of the man” connotes that much wisdom can be learned from the innocence of the young; thus, the persona wishes to keep that youthful innocence that connects the child to nature. Wordsworth himself reiterates this in Ode: Intimations of Immortality and in Tintern Abbey.
1. What is the tone of the following lines from Shakespeare’s Hamlet?
What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason!
How infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable!
A. amazement
B. mockery
C. veneration
D. sadness
2. The following lines from Robert Browning’s My Last Duchess exemplify what poetic strategy?
That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her?
A. Aside
B. Dialogue
C. Monologue
D. Soliloquy
3. From what perspective is the following story told?
"I could picture it. I have a rotten habit of picturing the bedroom scenes of my friends. We went out to the Cafe Napolitain to have an aperitif and watch the evening crowd on the Boulevard." from The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.
A. First person
B. Second person
C. Third person omniscient
D. Third person limited
4. What type of irony does Shakespeare use in Anthony’s speech?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
A. dramatic irony
C. causal irony
B. irony of situation
D. verbal irony
5. What do the following lines from William Blake exhort?
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
A. to appreciate even the smallest of things
B. to be extremely imaginative and creative
C. to believe in fantasy like a child
D. to be strong and faithful to God
6. What poetic device is exemplified in the following lines from Edward Taylor’s “Huswifery”?
Make me, O Lord, thy Spinning Wheel complete,
Thy Holy Word my Distaff make for me.
Make mine Affections thy Swift Flyers neat
And make my Soul thy holy Spool to be.
My Conversation make to be thy Reel
And reel the yarn thereon spun of thy Wheel.
A. irony of statement
B. pathetic fallacy
C. a literary conceit
D. a paradoxical line
7. What does the persona in “Huswifery” ask God to do?
A. Complete him as a human being
B. Bless him with food and clothing
C. Mold him into what God wants him to be
D. Clothe him with the finest silk from God
8. Which two sound devices did Alexander Pope use in the following lines?
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
but when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar:
A. Assonance and consonance
B. Alliteration and onomatopoeia
C. Consonance and cacophony
D. Onomatopoeia and assonance
9. What figure of speech is exemplified below?
“The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his two fingers.”
A. Allusion
B. Metaphor
C. Onomatopoeia
D. Personification
10. What type of sonnet is exemplified in the following lines?
When I consider how my light is spent
Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
A. Elizabethan
B. English
C. Petrarchan
D. Spenserian
11. Which statement best summarizes the Holy Sonnet X by John Donne?
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.
A. Death shall cease in the after life.
B. Death comes through poppy or charms.
C. Death takes so many forms and ways.
D. Death should not be proud since it is not mighty.
12. What does the word “swell’st” in the Holy Sonnet X mean?
A. boast
B. shrink
C. grow
D. swear
13. Which statement about love is true based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116?
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
A. Love dissipates when lovers live apart.
B. Love adapts to changing circumstances.
C. Love never wanes even in old age.
D. Love grows even to the edge of doom.
14. In “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time,” what is the persona’s main message?
A. Be wise in marriage to make life more worthwhile.
B. Marry now, or you may never have another chance.
C. Gather the rosebuds now, before the roses bloom.
D. Choose only lovers who, like roses, are of the highest order.
15. Which word best describes the speaker in “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars”?
Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind,
That from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast and quiet mind
To war and arms I fly.
A. cold-hearted
B. sweet-tongued
C. honorable
D. modest
16. To what sensory perception do the following lines from James Joyce’s Araby appeal?
“…we ran…to the dark dripping gardens to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odors arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness.”
A. auditory
B. olfactory
C. gustatory
D. tactile
17. What does the lamb in “The Lamb” symbolize?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
A. Faith and loyalty
B. Innocence and purity
C. Weakness and hopelessness
D. Helplessness and dependence
18. Which of the following best states the theme of Ozymandias?
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
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.
A. Power and arrogance are both destructive.
B. Temples and statues are witnesses to history.
C. Powerful rulers and great civilizations perish.
D. Life is short and time is fleeting.
19. What 17th Century philosophy does Browning assert in the following lines from Rabbi Ben Ezra?
Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay,—
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”
A. anagnorisis
B. carpe diem
C. peripeteia
D. romanticism
20. What lesson does the speaker learn in A.E. Housman’s When I Was One-and-Twenty?
'The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
A. The speaker realizes the value of listening to pieces of advice.
B. The speaker learns the foolishness of disobeying his elders.
C. The speaker realizes the folly and pain of youthful love.
D. The speaker learns the stupidity of wasting his youth.
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