Q01of 10
At the opening of the poem, why does the woman linger at the meeting place?
Q02of 10
What does the simile 'like a child, the eager streamlet / leaped and laughed' primarily convey?
Q03of 10
The rising moon is described as 'ominous, and red as blood.' What technique does this image most clearly illustrate?
Q04of 10
In the third stanza, the speaker compares the woman's heart to 'bare cedars leaning inland / from the blighting of the sea.' What does this simile suggest about her emotional state?
Q05of 10
Which best describes the structural shift that occurs in the fifth stanza, beginning 'Suddenly the silence wavered'?
Q06of 10
The lover tells the woman that the postern to his captor's castle can be found 'on a green spot in the desert.' What literary tradition does this quest setting most strongly invoke?
Q07of 10
What is the thematic significance of the 'pilgrim scallop' and 'pilgrim staff' the woman takes up in stanza nine?
Q08of 10
At the castle threshold, 'there she saw no surly warder / with an eye like bolt and bar.' Instead she finds an angel. What does this revelation most directly imply about the 'castle' she has found?
Q09of 10
In the penultimate narrative stanza the woman leaps 'o'er the threshold' and both 'the spirit's languor' and 'the body's scurf' fall from her. What poetic technique do these parallel phrases employ?
Q10of 10
The final couplet — 'Neath the palm next day some Arabs / Found a corpse upon the turf' — deliberately uses a plain, matter-of-fact tone. What effect does this tonal choice create?
0 / 10 answered