ENG 102: English Composition II

Online Quiz: Poetic Forms

I. Robert Frost, Mending Wall

1. The speaker of the poem is the one who:

 a. wants to keep the wall b. questions the need for it.

1.__________________   

2. and 3. There are two lines in the poem that summarize each neighbor’s view of

the wall; each of these lines is repeated twice. What are the two lines?

2.____________________________________________________________________________________

3.____________________________________________________________________________________

4. The neighbor who does not want the wall gives all of the reasons below except:

    a. Their different kinds of trees create natural boundaries.

    b. The hunters will just knock it down again.

    c. He doesn’t want to offend people by walling them out.

    d. Neither one of them has cows that need to be contained.

4.__________________

5. The neighbor who wants to keep the wall feels that way because:

    a. he is stubborn

    b. his father believed that the wall was necessary

    c. both

5.__________________

6. The speaker describes his neighbor: “Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top/

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.” Which poetry term does the part in boldface type illustrate?

6.__________________

7. In the following lines, which poetry term does the part in boldface type illustrate? (Hint: There is no punctuation at the end of the first line.)

“My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.”

7.__________________

8. In the following lines, if you say the word “offense” aloud, it also sounds like “a fence.” Which poetry term does this illustrate?

“. . . I’d ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.”

8.__________________

9. The ending of the poem suggests that: a. the wall stays up b. the wall comes down.

9.__________________

10. In poetry, language is used more metaphorically than in prose. What might the physical wall in the poem represent? What other kinds of walls could this poem be about?

10.____________________________________________________________________________________

II. Walt WhitmanWhen I Heard the Learn’d AstronomerWhen I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer, When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer

11. The speaker leaves the lecture hall because:

    a. he is having flashbacks to math class

    b. he feels sick and needs to find a bathroom

    c. he doesn’t like the scientist’s vision of the stars

    d. he doesn’t like crowds

11.__________________

12. Which poetry term do these words illustrate: “mystical moist”? (Note the boldface print.)

12.__________________

13. Which poetry term do these words illustrate: “Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself”?

13.__________________

14. The repetition of “When” in the first four lines reinforces the speaker’s:

    a. anger

    b. restlessness

    c. weak vocabulary

14.__________________

15. What does the speaker find when he goes outside and looks at the stars that the astronomer’s lecture did not provide?

    a. beauty

    b. relaxation

    c. peace and quiet

15.__________________

III. Briefly discuss your response to these two poems. What similar theme do they share? Which one do you prefer, and why?