SAT II Literature : Genre, Style, Tone, Mood, and Other Literary Features

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT II Literature

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Example Questions

Example Question #22 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Poetry

To the Dead in the Grave-Yard Under My Window
by Adelaide Crapsey (1878 - 1915)

  1. How can you lie so still? All day I watch
  2. And never a blade of all the green sod moves
  3. To show where restlessly you toss and turn,
  4. And fling a desperate arm or draw up knees
  5. Stiffened and aching from their long disuse;
  6. I watch all night and not one ghost comes forth
  7. To take its freedom of the midnight hour.
  8. Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones?
  9. The very worms must scorn you where you lie,
  10. A pallid mouldering acquiescent folk,
  11. Meek habitants of unresented graves.
  12. Why are you there in your straight row on row
  13. Where I must ever see you from my bed
  14. That in your mere dumb presence iterate
  15. The text so weary in my ears: “Lie still
  16. And rest; be patient and lie still and rest.”
  17. I’ll not be patient! I will not lie still!

The speaker’s tone can best be characterized as:

I   exasperated
II  scornful
III tractable

Possible Answers:

I only

III only

II and III
 only

I, II, and III

I and II

Correct answer:

I and II

Explanation:

The speaker's tone is both exasperated ("How can you lie so still?) and scornful ("Oh, have you no rebellion in your bones? /The very worms must scorn you where you lie...") Her tone is not at all "tractable" (compliant, easily controlled).

Even if you do not know the meaning of "tractable", you can still discover the correct response through the process of elimination. If you see that the speaker's tone is both exasperated and scornful, you can eliminate "I only" (which says "only exasperated is correct") "III only" (which says "neither exasperated nor scornful is correct"), and "II and III
 only" (which says that exasperated is not correct.)

Example Question #3 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Twentieth Century Poetry

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know.

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?

Not only under the ground are the brains of men

Eaten by maggots,

Is nothing,

An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.

It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,

April

Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

(1921)

Which of the following best describes the poem's tone?

Possible Answers:

Petulant and accepting

Despondent and passive 

Optimistic and theological 

Loving but frustrated 

Existential and resentful

Correct answer:

Existential and resentful

Explanation:

The poem's tone can best be described as being "existential and resentful," because "Life in itself is nothing" illustrates the speaker's philosophical and pessimistic views on life, and her resentment towards April is illustrated by "You can no longer quiet me..." and calling April "an idiot."

Passage adapted from Edna St. Vincent Milay's "Spring" (1921).

Example Question #24 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Poetry

 The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees.   
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas.   
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,   
And the highwayman came riding— 
         Riding—riding— 
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door. 
 
He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,   
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin. 
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.   
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle, 
         His pistol butts a-twinkle, 
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky. 
 
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard. 
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred.   
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there   
But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, 
         Bess, the landlord’s daughter, 
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair. 
 
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked 
Where Tim the ostler listened. His face was white and peaked.   
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,   
But he loved the landlord’s daughter, 
         The landlord’s red-lipped daughter. 
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say— 
 
“One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I’m after a prize to-night, 
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light; 
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,   
Then look for me by moonlight, 
         Watch for me by moonlight, 
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”
 
(1906) 

The first two lines of this poem function primarily to establish ___________________.

Possible Answers:

Setting 

Plot

Rhyme scheme    

Mood

Character

Correct answer:

Mood

Explanation:

The primary function of the first two lines of this poem is to establish mood. The word choice and imagery contribute to a dark, creepy atmosphere. Although these lines do establish that the poem will have a rhyme scheme (trees/seas), this purpose is secondary to the establishment of mood. These lines also hint at a setting, but give us no specifics--we learn later in the stanza that the setting is an inn near a purple moor. These lines provide no information about character or plot.

Passage adapted from Alfred Noyes' "The Highwayman" (1906)

Example Question #4 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Twentieth Century Poetry

1. Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
2. Better to see your temple worn,
3. Than to forget to follow, follow,
4. After the sound of a silver horn.

5. Better to bind your brow with willow
6. And follow, follow until you die,
7. Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
8. Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.

9. Better to see your cheek grow sallow
10. And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
11. Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
12. After the milk-white hounds of the moon.

The attitude of the author toward the reader can be described as all of the following EXCEPT ______________.

I   Gently enticing
II  Harshly berating
III Urgently pleading

Possible Answers:

I and III only

III only

I only

II and III only

II only

Correct answer:

I and III only

Explanation:

The poem as a whole can be read as an extended warning against living unconsciously. The author’s tone throughout is both enticing and pleading, but never harsh. Though she urges the reader to make the right choice, she does not berate him.

Passage adapted from Eleanor Wylie's "A Madman's Song" (1921)

Example Question #5 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Twentieth Century Poetry

1. Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
2. Better to see your temple worn,
3. Than to forget to follow, follow,
4. After the sound of a silver horn.

5. Better to bind your brow with willow
6. And follow, follow until you die,
7. Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
8. Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.

9. Better to see your cheek grow sallow
10. And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
11. Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
12. After the milk-white hounds of the moon.

It can be inferred that the author sympathizes with which literary movement?

Possible Answers:

Romanticism

Symbolism

Magic Realism

Classicism

Postmodernism

Correct answer:

Romanticism

Explanation:

This poem is a clear example of literary Romanticism: it extols intense feeling, reveres nature and the irrational, and associates night and moonlight with heightened experience.

Passage adapted from Eleanor Wylie's "A Madman's Song" (1921)

Example Question #884 : Sat Subject Test In Literature

  And first, truly, to all them that, professing learning, inveigh against poetry, may justly be objected that they go very near to ungratefulness, to seek to deface that which, in the noblest nations and languages that are known, hath been the first light-giver to ignorance, and first nurse, whose milk by little and little enabled them to feed afterwards of tougher knowledges. And will they now play the hedgehog, that, being received into the den, drave out his host? Or rather the vipers, that with their birth kill their parents?

Let learned Greece in any of her manifold sciences be able to show me one book before Musæus, Homer, and Hesiod, all three nothing else but poets. Nay, let any history be brought that can say any writers were there before them, if they were not men of the same skill, as Orpheus, Linus, and some other are named, who, having been the first of that country that made pens deliver of their knowledge to their posterity, may justly challenge to be called their fathers in learning. For not only in time they had this priority—although in itself antiquity be venerable—but went before them, as causes to draw with their charming sweetness the wild untamed wits to an admiration of knowledge. So as Amphion was said to move stones with his poetry to build Thebes, and Orpheus to be listened to by beasts,—indeed stony and beastly people. So among the Romans were Livius Andronicus and Ennius; so in the Italian language the first that made it aspire to be a treasure-house of science were the poets Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch; so in our English were Gower and Chaucer, after whom, encouraged and delighted with their excellent fore-going, others have followed to beautify our mother tongue, as well in the same kind as in other arts. 

(1595)

The author's tone in this passage could best be described as ___________________.

Possible Answers:

angry and vehement

insincere and apathetic

didactic and earnest

sarcastic and bitter

nostalgic and sorrowful

Correct answer:

didactic and earnest

Explanation:

A good way to describe the tone of the passage is "didactic and earnest." "Didactic" is appropriate because the author is trying to instruct his audience. For instance, to demonstrate his point, in the second paragraph he uses the examples of various cultures who had poets as their first writers and intellectuals. "Earnest" is appropriate because the author is taking his subject seriously.

Passage adapted from Sir Philip Sidney's The Defense of Poesy (1595).

Example Question #1 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Prose

It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms . . .

. . . I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection.

I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.

                                                                                                                                                                                                         (1729)

This passage's tone is best described as ___________.

Possible Answers:

solemn 

pompous 

satirical 

zealous 

foreboding 

Correct answer:

satirical 

Explanation:

"Satirical" best describes this passage's tone. The first paragraph suggests that povery is an issue, and the following paragraphs suggest the way to fix the problem is to eat children. Satire attempts to cause a social change or examine/criticize human actions or bad characteristics and ridicule it through irony and humor. 

(Passage adapted from "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift)

Example Question #3 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Prose

Dear Sir, 

You are pleased to call again, and with some earnestness, for my thoughts on the late proceedings in France. I will not give you reason to imagine, that I think my sentiments of such value as to wish myself to be solicited about them. They are of too little consequence to be very anxiously either communicated or withheld. It was from attention to you, and to you only, that I hesitated at the time, when you first desired to receive them. In the first letter I had the honour to write you, and which at length I send, I wrote neither for nor from any description of men; nor shall I in this. My errors, if any, are my own. My reputation alone is to answer for them. 

You see, Sir, by the long letter I have transmitted to you, that, though I do most heartily wish that France may be animated by a spirit of rational liberty, and that I think you bound, in all honest policy, to provide a permanent body, in which that spirit may reside, and an effectual organ, by which it may act, it is my misfortune to entertain great doubts concerning several material points in your late transactions.

(1790)

In the first three sentences of the first paragraph ("You are pleased to call again....either communicated or withheld.), the tone is primarily one of __________________.

Possible Answers:

apology

disdain

annoyance

deliberate humility

anger

Correct answer:

deliberate humility

Explanation:

In the first three sentences of this passage, the speaker shows no signs of anger, disdain, or annoyance. Neither is he offering an apology for anything. He is, however, assuring his addressee that he does not think overly highly of himself or his opinions, which is more than anything else a display of humility.

Passage adapted from Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).  

Example Question #4 : Tone, Style, And Mood: Prose

We went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. …Jim was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him.  He got up and stretched his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says:

“Who dah?”

He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't sleepy—if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places.

What is the overall tone of this passage?

Possible Answers:

Didactic

Sardonic

Furtive

Admonitory

Comical

Correct answer:

Comical

Explanation:

With its characters’ farcical tiptoeing around, tripping on a branch, and narrow avoidance of discovery, the tone of the passage is decidedly comical. It is made more so by the narrator’s internal monologue about itching and the inability to do so in certain social situations. While the characters are behaving with a degree of furtiveness, the tone of the passage itself is not stealthy or secretive.

Passage adapted from Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884).

Example Question #31 : Tone, Style, And Mood

From the dim woods on either bank, Night’s ghostly army, the grey shadows, creep out with noiseless tread to chase away the lingering rear-guard of the light, and pass, with noiseless, unseen feet, above the waving river-grass, and through the sighing rushes; and Night, upon her sombre throne, folds her black wings above the darkening world, and, from her phantom palace, lit by the pale stars, reigns in stillness.

Then we run our little boat into some quiet nook, and the tent is pitched, and the frugal supper cooked and eaten. Then the big pipes are filled and lighted, and the pleasant chat goes round in musical undertone; while, in the pauses of our talk, the river, playing round the boat, prattles strange old tales and secrets, sings low the old child’s song that it has sung so many thousand years...

Harris said: “How about when it rained?”

You can never rouse Harris. There is no poetry about Harris—no wild yearning for the unattainable. Harris never “weeps, he knows not why.” If Harris’s eyes fill with tears, you can bet it is because Harris has been eating raw onions, or has put too much Worcester over his chop.

What is the tone of paragraph 2?

Possible Answers:

Wistful

Petulant

Sardonic

Ebullient

Mirthful

Correct answer:

Wistful

Explanation:

The paragraph in question describes happy times in a somewhat pensive tone. While paragraph 2 is not as imagistic or lyrical as paragraph 1, it is certainly not sardonic (sarcastic) or mirthful. It is also not ebullient (overjoyed) or petulant (peevish).

Passage adapted from Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (1889).

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