AP English Literature and Composition › Contexts of American Poetry Before 1925
Thou hast a house on high erect
Framed by that mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent though this be fled.
It‘s purchased and paid for too
By Him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown,
Yet by His gift is made thine own;
There‘s wealth enough, I need no more,
Farewell, my pelf, farewell, my store.
The world no longer let me love,
My hope and treasure lies above.
Which of the following Fireside Poets is a descendant of this poet?
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
William Cullen Bryant
John Greenleaf Whittier
James Russell Lowell
Oliver Wendell Holmes, a member of the New England group of writers known as the Fireside Poets and the author of “Old Ironsides” (1830), is a direct descendant of Anne Bradstreet.
Passage adapted from Anne Bradstreet’s “Verses upon the Burning of our House, July 10th, 1666” (1666)
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
What type of poem is this?
Epic
Southern Gothic
Melodrama
Sonnet
Sestina
Longfellow’s Evangeline is an epic poem, spanning dozens of long stanzas and concerning a young woman’s search for her lover, Gabriel Lajeunesse. It is set during the Great Deportation of the Acadians in Canada, a period of time during the French and Indian War.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
Who is the author of this poem?
Edgar Allan Poe
Robert Frost
Stephen Crane
Anne Bradstreet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
These are the opening lines of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven," which follows the story of a lovelorn man who is possibly slowly driven mad by grief for a woman named Lenore.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
The author of this poem also wrote all but which of the following poems?
“Little Gidding”
“The Road Not Taken”
“A Soldier”
“Mending Wall”
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”
“Little Gidding” is a poem by T.S. Eliot. (It’s the final work in Eliot’s masterpiece collection Four Quartets (1942).) The rest are all works by Robert Frost. "The Road Not Taken" is from Mountain Interval (1916), "A Soldier" is from West-Running Brook (1928), "Mending Wall" is from North of Boston (1915), "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” is from New Hampshire (1923).
Passage adapted from Robert Frost’s poem "After Apple-picking" published in his collection North of Boston (1915).
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
Who is the author of this poem?
Robert Frost
Wallace Stevens
Marianne Moore
Emily Dickinson
Ezra Pound
These are the opening lines of Robert Frost’s poem “After Apple-picking” from North of Boston (1915).
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
The author of this poem also wrote all but which one of the following works?
“Young Goodman Brown”
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
“The Cask of Amontillado”
“The Fall of the House of Usher”
“The Mask of the Red Death”
“Young Goodman Brown” is a short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The rest of the titles are all short stories by Poe.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
In what collection was this poem first published?
North of Boston
Harmonium
Meditations in an Emergency
The Pangolin and Other Verse
The Cantos
The poem appeared in North of Boston, Frost’s second collection.
Harmonium (1923) is a collection by Wallace Stevens, Meditations in an Emergency (1957)is a collection by Frank O’Hara, The Pangolin and Other Verse (1936)is a collection by Marianne Moore, and The Cantos (1948)is a collection by Ezra Pound.
Passage adapted from Robert Frost’s poem "After Apple-picking" published in his collection North of Boston (1915).
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
When was this poem published?
1915
1925
1905
1895
1885
The poem was first published in Frost’s second collection in 1915.
Passage adapted from Robert Frost’s poem "After Apple-picking" published in his collection North of Boston (1915).
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
"’t is some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door—
Only this, and nothing more."
During what era was this poem first published?
Antebellum
Revolutionary War
Reconstruction
Fin de Siècle
Colonial
The poem was first published in 1845, which falls in the Antebellum Period (spanning from the War of 1812 to the Civil War). You could have eliminated several of these answers based on Poe’s short life: He was only alive between 1809 and 1849.
Passage adapted from “The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe (1884)
This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
Who is the author of this poem?
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Walt Whitman
Robert Frost
Stephen Crane
This is the prologue to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s Evangeline: A Tale of Arcadie. It is known for being written in dactylic hexameter, a meter that many classical writers used.
Passage adapted from Evangeline, A Tale of Arcadie by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1847)