AP English Literature and Composition › Literary Analysis of British Poetry to 1660
Batter my heart (Holy Sonnet 14)
1 Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
2 As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
3 That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
4 Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
5 I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
6 Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
7 Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
8 But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
9 Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
10 But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
11 Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
12 Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
13 Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
14 Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
The major extended metaphor of the sonnet is the poet representing himself as .
a captured city
an unwilling bride
an exhausted laborer
a viceroy
a prisoner
The major extended metaphor of the sonnet is the poet representing himself as a captured city, as he is "like an usurp'd town" (line 5), until the typical sonnet turn in line 9.
Batter my heart (Holy Sonnet 14)
1 Batter my heart, three-person'd God; for you
2 As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
3 That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
4 Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
5 I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
6 Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
7 Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
8 But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
9 Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
10 But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
11 Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
12 Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
13 Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
14 Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
Which of the following excerpts represents for the poet God's more gentle, yet insufficient, manifestations of love?
"for you/As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;" (line 1 & 2)
"o'erthrow me" (line 3)
"Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new." (line 4)
"Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again," (line 11)
"imprison me" (line 12)
For the poet, God's "as yet" (line 2) knocking, shining, breathing, and mending are not sufficiently extreme to "Batter" (line 1) his heart, as a battering ram would.
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
"Seven years thou wert lent to me," (line 3), very likely tells the reader what?
The age of the son at his death
The length of time the child suffered
The years the speaker was absent from the child's life
The years since the child's death
The time period wherein the speaker will mourn
"Seven years thou wert lent to me," (line 3), very likely tells the reader the age of the son at his death. In the same line, "I thee pay" inclines the reader to believe that after seven years, the speaker had to relinquish his son.
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Psalm 23:4 reads, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." The following plays upon this religious imagery:
"Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade" (line 11)
"Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines" (line 5)
"And often is his gold complexion dimm’d" (line 6)
"And every fair from fair sometime declines" (line 7)
**"**When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st" (line 12)
"Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade," (line 11) plays upon the imagery of Psalm 23:4, as it refers to death's shade.
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
In which of the following lines might it be said that the speaker speaks favorably about his son's death?
Will man lament the state he should envy? (Line 6)
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, (Line 3)
Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy; (Line 1)
As what he loves may never like too much." (Line 12)
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy. (Line 2)
"Will man lament the state he should envy?" (Line 6) indicates that the speaker trying to cast in a favorable light his son's death; after all, in death man escapes the "flesh's rage" (Line 7).
A Knight ther was, and that a worthy man,
That fro the time that he first bigan
To riden out, he loved chivalrye,
Trouthe and honour, freedom and curteisye.
Ful worthy was he in his lordes werre,
And therto hadde he riden, no man ferre,
As wel in Christendom as hethenesse,
And evere honoured for his worthiness.
During which of the following time periods was the work containing the above excerpt written?
1350–1400
1200–1250
1250–1300
1300–1350
1400–1450
The excerpt above (lines 43-50 "The General Prologue" to Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales) was written during the 1380s.
Passage adapted from lines 43–50 in "General Prologue" in The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer (1478)
O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem
1 O, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem,
2 By that sweet ornament which truth doth give.
3 The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
4 For that sweet odour which doth in it live.
5 The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye
6 As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
7 Hang on such thorns and play as wantonly,
8 When summer's breath their masked buds discloses;
9 But, for their virtue only is their show,
10 They live unwoo'd and unrespected fade,
11 Die to themselves. Sweet roses do not so;
12 Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.
13 And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
14 When that shall fade, my verse distills your truth.
(1609)
“When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses” (line 8) is an example of ___________.
personification
hyperbole
a pun
satire
alliteration
“When summer’s breath their masked buds discloses;” (line 8) is an example of personification, as personification is a figure of speech where an inanimate object or idea possesses human attributes or abilities. Here, "summer" (an inanimate idea) has a "breath" (humans breathe).
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 54" by William Shakespeare)
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
"Thy eternal summer" (line 9) probably refers to __________.
the loveliness and temperance of the speaker's beloved
the summer season
"the darling buds of May" (line 3)
the "gold complexion" (line 6) of the speaker's beloved
"the eye of heaven" (line 5)
"Thy eternal summer" probably refers to the loveliness and temperance of the speaker's beloved, mentioned in line 2 ("Thou art more lovely and more temperate"). It is that loveliness the speaker's poetry will guard from fading: "thy eternal summer shall not fade" (line 9).
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear
1 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
2 Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
3 The vacant leaves thy mind’s impr'nt will bear,
4 And of this book this learning mayst thou taste:
5 The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
6 Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory;
7 Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know
8 Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
9 Look what thy memory cannot contain,
10 Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
11 Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
12 To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
13 These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
14 Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
(1609)
To what does “mouthèd graves” (line 6) refer?
Wrinkles
Blank pages
A cemetery
A dial
The past
“Mouthèd graves” (line 6) refers to the wrinkles mentioned in line 5. The glass (line 5) shows the wrinkles, which look like open graves because wrinkles look like deep cuts into our skin and graves are deep “cuts” into the earth. “Time’s thievish progress to eternity” (line 8) suggests that time goes by and then you die; wrinkles, being a sign of old age, bring you closer to death, so also remind you of death as “mouthèd graves.”
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 77" by William Shakespeare)
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
In which line is there a strong lending metaphor?
Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay, (Line 3)
My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy. (Line 2)
To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage, (Line 7)
As what he loves may never like too much." (Line 12)
Oh, could I lose all father now! For why (Line 5)
"Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay," (Line 3), is a strong metaphor in which the speaker seems to believe he has entered into a contract with God, and God has come to collect his payment. The metaphor is the son being compared to a loan.