Sonnet Test (50 m.c., 1.5 points each; 1 o.r., 25 points) STANDARD VERSION
Basics of the Sonnet Form
- A sonnet is a type of poem that includes this number of lines.
- 10 b. 12 c. 14 d. 16
2. Each line in a sonnet contains this number of syllables.
a. 10 b. 12 c. 14 d. 16
3. Sonnets are usually written in this type of meter, based on syllables of alternating stress.
a. ballad meter b. quatrain meter c. iambic pentameter
4. This type of sonnet is organized into quatrains and couplets.
a. Elizabethan/Shakespearean b. Italian/Petrarchan
5. This type of sonnet is organized into octaves and sestets.
a. Elizabethan/Shakespearean b. Italian/Petrarchan
6. The word “sonnet” comes from the Italian word for “little ______.”
a. poem b. story c. song d. ballad
Sonnet from Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
ROMEO If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle sin is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.
JULIET Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.
ROMEO
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?
JULIET
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.
ROMEO
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray — grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.
JULIET
Saints do not move, though grant for prayers' sake.
ROMEO
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.
7. Which of the following words suggests a religious motif in the poem?
a. pilgrim b. shrine c. holy palmer d. all of the above
8. In what way is Romeo an unworthy or unsuitable person to use the sonnet form?
a. He does not really love Juliet.
b. He is not a true member of the elite upper class.
c. He is speaking to a lower class girl.
d. He is already engaged to marry Juliet at this time in the poem.
9. Why is the sonnet form a proper choice for Shakespeare to use when introducing these two lovers?
a. They are the quintessential lovers in literature, and the sonnet form is the quintessential poem about love.
b. All of Shakespeare’s plays included dialogue in the sonnet form.
c. Sonnets are generally about religion, and this poem features a religious motif.
d. Sonnets are little songs, and Romeo and Juliet was originally a musical.
10. What are Romeo and Juliet’s palms doing in this passage?
a. shaking b. touching c. waving d. pointing
Sonnet 18, William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do ahake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untimm’d;
But they eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
11. What literary device is used in line 11 (“Nor shall Death brag…”)?
a. Assonance b. Simile c. Personification d. Anaphora
12. In line 14, to what does “this” most likely refer?
a. Love b. The poem c. The eternal summer d. Line 14
13. In comparison to a summer’s day, the speaker feels his love…
a. Is not nearly as good, because she will age and the summer stays young
b. Is about the same
c. Is worlds better, because – after all – summer is too short and sometimes too hot
d. Is worlds better, because – after all – summer is poetry
14. What literary device is employed in line 7 (“fair from fair”)?
a. Simile
b. Personification
c. Metaphor
d. Alliteration
Sonnet 29, William Shakespeare
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess’d,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet is these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For they sweet love remember’d such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
15. What word best describes the tone of the first 12 lines of this poem?
a. Elated
b. Ecstatic
c. Depressed
d. Romantic
16. What does line 3 (“And trouble deaf heaven…”) suggest?
a. The speaker is deaf
b. Even God is not listening
c. The sky is troubled
d. God is crying
17. What does line 6 (“Featured like him…”) suggest?
a. The speaker is possessed by a spirit
b. The speaker is jealous of someone with a lot of friends
c. The speaker has many friends
d. The speaker features prominently in the romance
18. The speaker’s change in mood in the final two lines is an example of what literary device?
a. Allusion
b. Irony
c. Metaphor
d. Assonance
Sonnet 73, William Shakespeare
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
19. The images of nature in this poem are symbols of what?
a. life b. romance c. death and dying d. solitude
20. In line 6, “after sunset fadeth in the west” is symbolic of what?
a. the end of life b. something beautiful c. the United States d. cowboys
21. Based on the context of line 3, “boughs” are probably what?
a. birds b. stars c. branches d. carriages
22. In the end, the speaker feels that thoughts of death ironically strengthen love.
a. true b. false
Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! It is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
23. The reference to the “wandering bark” is what type of literary device?
a. Simile b. Synecdoche c. Dissonance d. Allusion
24. In line 2, what does the word “impediments” means?
a. Inconsistencies b. Obstacles c. Independence d. Virtues
25. What is the theme of Sonnet 116?
a. True love remains steady b. Even the strongest love is temporary
c. Love changes as life changes d. Age and time alter love
26. Why could the final line be considered ironic?
a. “Writ” is spelled incorrectly b. This is not geometry class, so there can be no proof
c. It negates the previously 13 lines d. Shakespeare has obviously written, so the statement must be true
Sonnet 130, William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.
27. What does “dun” (line 3) most nearly mean?
a. white b. blond c. dark brown d. yellow
28. Line 1 (“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”) contains what literary device?
a. anaphora b. alliteration c. dissonance d. simile
29. Which of the following is a theme of this poem?
a. Love conquers all. b. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
c. Physical beauty is the catalyst for romance. d. Love is eternal
30. In which ways does the Dark Lady in this poem not conform to standards of Elizabethan beauty?
a. Her hair color b. Her cheeks c. Her lips d. All of the above.
Sonnet 67, Edmund Spenser
Like as a huntsman after weary chase,
Seeing the game from him escaped away,
sits down to rest him in some shady place,
with panting hounds, beguiled of their prey:
So, after long pursuit and vain assay,
when I all weary had the chase forsook,
the gentle deer returned the self-same way,
thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke.
There she, beholding me with milder look,
sought not to fly, but fearless still did bide,
till I in hand her yet half trembling took,
and with her own good will her firmly tied.
Strange thing, me seemed, to see a beast so wild,
so goodly won, with her own will beguiled.
31. Because the hunter and the prey actually represent a man and a woman, this poem could be considered which of the following?
a. A novel b. A sonnet c. An allegory d. An alliteration
32. The “weary chase” of the huntsman is actually a metaphor for what?
a. Hunting b. Running c. Attempts to court a female d. Marriage
33. Why could the end of the poem be considered ironic?
a. The girl turns into a deer b. The girl rejects the man
c. The man rejects the girl d. The girl goes toward the man when he has given up
34. Which literary device is present in the following words: chase, game, away, shady place, prey, vain assay?
a. Alliteration b. Simile c. Dissonance d. Assonance
Sonnet 75, Edmund Spenser
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize,
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name.
Where whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
Out love shall live, and later life renew.
35. What is the best definition for the word “strand”?
a. A wave b. A sand dune c. A Swamp d. The place where the water meets the shore
36. Which of the following literary devices in contained in the phrase “love shall live, and later life”?
a. Anaphora b. Alliteration c. Dissonance d. Simile
37. The capitalization of “Death” suggests what literary device?
a. Assonance b. Simile c. Personification d. Onomatopoeia
38. The speaker implies that this is the difference between writing his lover’s name in the strand and writing his lover’s name in a poem.
a. Both are vain.
b. Writing the name in the strand is impermanent, like life, while writing the name in a poem lasts forever.
c. Both are practical.
d. Writing the name in the strand expresses love, while writing the name in the poem is vain.
Sonnet 31, Philip Sidney
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb'st the skies !
How silently, and with how wan a face !
What, may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long with love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case;
I read it in thy looks;thy languisht grace
To me that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there, ungratefulness?
39. This poem is directed toward this moon. This is an example of what literary device?
a. Anaphora b. Apostrophe c. Allusion d. Onomatopoeia
40. The reference to “that busy archer” (Cupid) is an example of what literary device?
a. Anaphora b. Apostrophe c. Allusion d. Onomatopoeia
41. Which of the following words best describes the tone of this sonnet?
a. ecstatic b. melancholy c. exhilarating d. gleeful
42. The reference to the Moon climbing the skies is an example of what literary device?