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Test: Common Core: 12th Grade English Language Arts
Passage adapted from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Spring" (1921).
To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know. 5
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify? 10
Not only under the ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs. 15
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
| 1. | What is the primary function of the poem's opening question? |
The question's function is rhetorical; since it is answered in the next line, it helps to make the author's perspective on the topic immediately clear
The question's function is narrative; it sets up the mystery that the reader and speaker are attempting to solve
The question's function is aesthetic; sets the tone of deep philosophical questioning that will follow
The question is functioning literally; it fulfills no narrative or aesthetic goal
