Essay questions on foreign Literature

1.  Write a short essay:  What is the mood or feeling of the “The
Husband’s Message?”  How do the imagery,
figurative language, and poetic devices work together to achieve this mood or
feeling?  Write a brief paragraph in
which you describe the mood of the poem and identify the mechanisms used by the
poet to achieve this mood.  Your response
should identify at least two examples of a poetic device (alliteration,
assonance, etc.), one image, and one example of figurative language from the
poem.

2.  Write a paragraph addressing the question of
whether or not “The Husband’s Message” is an epic poem.  Consider the hero, the events, and the
setting in your answer.

The Husband’s Message

translated by Kevin Crossley- Holland

Now that we’re
alone I can explain
The secret meaning of this stave. I was once a child.

But now one of
the sons of men, living far from here,

Sends me on
errands over the salt-streams,

5 Commands me
to carry a cunningly-carved letter.
At my master’s command I have often crossed the sea,

Sailed in the
ship’s hold to strange destinations.
And this time I have come especially
To sow assurance in your mind

10 About my
lord’s great love for you.
I swear that you will find in him
Great faith to you, great loyalty.
O lady adorned with such lovely ornaments,

He who carved
the words in this wood

15 Bids me ask
you to remember
The oaths you swore so long ago together;
In those distant days you lived in the same country,

Lived in love
together,
Sharing one estate in the beautiful city.

20 Then a feud,
a cruel vendetta, forced him to leave

This land of
happy people; I was told to tell you,

Joyfully, that
you should undertake a journey

Just as soon as
you hear the cuckoo’s sad song,

That mournful
sound in the mountain woods.

25 After that,
let no man delay you
Or stop you from sailing over the waves.
Go down to the sea, the home of the gull;
Sail south from here over the salt-streams
To the land where land waits in high expectations.

30 He nurses no
greater wish in the world
(With his own words he told me),
Than that both of you together, by the grace of God,

May give rings
once again to men in the mead-hall;

Bestow gifts as
before on companions 35 And warriors.

He has won

Wealth enough,
though he lives
Far away amongst a foreign people
In a beautiful land.
Forced by the feud to launch his boat from here,

40 He went over
the waves alone in his youth,
Set forth on the way of the flood, eager to
Depart and divide the quiet waters. Now at last your lord

Leaves his
sorrows behind him. He will lack nothing,

Neither horses,
nor treasure, nor joy in the mead-hall,

45 O daughter
of the prince,
He will want nothing else in the world

If only he may
have you
for his
own,

Fulfilling the
former vow between you.

I hear the
runes S. and R.,

50 EA., W. and
M. join in an oath
That he will wait for you in that country,
And will always love you for as long as he lives,

Faithful and
true to your vows to each other,

The oaths you
swore so long ago together.

3.  Identify two examples of irony in Sonnet 57.  Explain why each example is ironic and what
effect the irony achieves in the poem.