AP English Literature and Composition › Identification of British Poetry 1660–1925
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
The poem from which this passage is excerpted ends with which of the following?
An epitaph
An epigraph
An epistle
An epigram
An epicure
An "epitaph" is a written commemoration of a person’s life, often on a gravestone. Even if you didn’t know how the poem ended, an epitaph would be the most logical choice to end this poem. An "epigraph" is a short quotation (usually presented at the beginning of a novel or other published work), an "epigram" is a short or witty saying, an "epistle" is a letter, and an "epicure" is someone who appreciates fine food and beverages. The particular epitaph at the end of this poem memorializes a poet who died with his work unknown, an insight into Gray’s own views of his work.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
Identify the poet of the following lines based on the content and style of the selection.
T. S. Eliot
William Wordsworth
Ezra Pound
John Keats
Walt Whitman
The lines are from T. S. Eliot's 1922 poem, "The Waste Land." It is widely regarded as one of the most important poems of the twentieth century.
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?
Who wrote this poem?
Alexander Pope
John Dryden
William Cowper
John Donne
Joseph Addison
This is Alexander Pope’s poem The Rape of the Lock. Belinda is one of the main characters of this work.
Passage adapted from Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I.1-12(1712; ed. 1906)
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
Which of the following poems could not be described as a reaction to this work?
John Donne’s “Death Be Not Proud”
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire”
Oliver Goldsmith’s “The Deserted Village”
John Cunningham’s “An Elegy on a Pile of Ruins”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s In Memoriam
All of the poems are arguably inspired by or draw elements from Gray’s poem except for John Donne’s famous sonnet, which was published in 1633.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
Which of the following is not a prevalent theme in the poem?
Agrarian reform
Mortality
Human obscurity
Christian faith
Human accomplishment
Although the poem is set in a country churchyard, it does not discuss rural problems, including agrarian reform. Rather, the setting provides an idyllic backdrop for the deeper existential musings of the poem.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
Who wrote this poem?
Thomas Gray
Thomas Merton
William Cowper
John Dryden
Joseph Addison
These are some of the final lines of Thomas Gray’s famous Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
If chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some hidden Spirit shall inquire thy Fate,
Haply some hoary-headed Swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him at the Peep of Dawn
Brushing with hasty Steps the Dews away
To meet the Sun upon the upland Lawn.
There at the Foot of yonder nodding Beech
That wreathes its old fantastic Roots so high,
His listless Length at Noontide wou'd he stretch,
And pore upon the Brook that babbles by."
Which of the following is a line from the poem that later became the title for an 1874 English novel?
“Far from the madding Crowd's ignoble Strife”
“Ev'n from the Tomb the Voice of Nature cries”
“'One Morn I miss'd him on the custom'd Hill”
“Can Honour's Voice provoke the silent Dust”
“The rude Forefathers of the Hamlet sleep”
The novel in question is Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd, which concerns a love triangle between a shepherd, a wealthy farmer, and a young woman named Bathsheba.
Passage adapted from "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" by Thomas Gray, ln.95-104 (1751)
What dire offence from am'rous causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trivial things,
I sing — This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due:
This, ev'n Belinda may vouchsafe to view:
Slight is the subject, but not so the praise,
If She inspire, and He approve my lays.
Say what strange motive, Goddess! could compel
A well-bred Lord t' assault a gentle Belle?
O say what stranger cause, yet unexplor'd,
Could make a gentle Belle reject a Lord?
In tasks so bold, can little men engage,
And in soft bosoms dwells such mighty Rage?
What is the subject of this poem?
An illicit haircut and a rift between two aristocratic families
A royal intrigue between Henry VIII and an imagined woman
The execution of a political prisoner in the Tower of London
The undue importance that British society places on female virtue
A notorious London brothel and the life of a reformed prostitute
This poem is based on the true story of two noble families in England during Pope’s lifetime. The inspiration for the poem occurred when a male suitor of one family cut off a lock of hair from a woman (named Belinda in the poem) of the other family without her permission. Pope uses his extensive powers of hyperbole, the mock-heroic form, and classical allusions to satirize this incident and blow it entirely out of proportion.
Passage adapted from Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, I.1-12(1712; ed. 1906)
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart; no no, I feel
The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh,
Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
Which of the following poets wrote the excerpted lines?
John Milton
John Dryden
William Shakespeare
Edward Taylor
Anne Bradstreet
This is an excerpt from John Milton's epic poem, "Paradise Lost." The first version was published in 1667 and consisted of ten books with over ten thousand lines of verse.
Passage adapted from Paradise Lost by John Milton, l.911-916 (1667)
In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and this dissociation, as is natural, was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, Milton and Dryden. Each of these men performed certain poetic functions so magnificently well that the magnitude of the effect concealed the absence of others. The language went on and in some respects improved; the best verse of Collins, Gray, Johnson, and even Goldsmith satisfies some of our fastidious demands better than that of Donne or Marvell or King. But while the language became more refined, the feeling became more crude. The feeling, the sensibility, expressed in the "Country Churchyard" (to say nothing of Tennyson and Browning) is cruder than that in the "Coy Mistress."
The title of a work by which of the following poets is specifically referenced in the passage?
Thomas Gray
John Donne
Robert Browning
George Herbert
Samuel Johnson
Two poems are referenced by title in this passage: Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" and Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard." Marvell is not one of the answer choices, so the only possible answer is Thomas Gray.