Mr. Ferrebee – January 2009

12th grade Final Exam Topic Outline –

Spring 2009

From the Anglo-Saxon Period…

  1. Beginning and end dates
  2. “The Seafarer” / “The Wanderer”
  3. Themes
  4. wandering and exile
  5. faith in God will be rewarded
  6. caesura
  7. kenning
  8. scop
  9. Beowulf
  10. Pagan v. Christian influence
  11. Theme
  12. struggle between good and evil
  13. Characters / Places
  14. Beowulf
  15. King Hrothgar
  16. Grendel
  17. ancestry
  18. Mrs. Grendel
  19. Herot
  20. Geatland v. Denmark
  21. Terms
  22. legendary hero
  23. epic hero
  24. epic poem
  25. scop

From the Middle Ages…

  1. Beginning and end dates
  2. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”
  3. extraordinary events
  4. rhymed couplet / heroic couplet
  5. the terms and result of the Green Knight’s challenge
  6. the game at the castle between Sir Gawain and the castle’s lord
  7. theme – discovery of one’s character
  8. literary terms
  9. chivalric hero
  10. chivalry
  11. “The Canterbury Tales” and Geoffrey Chaucer
  12. “The Prologue”
  13. Theme – variety in human nature and tendency of variety to diminish stereotypes
  14. purpose
  15. “The Pardoner’s Tale”
  16. Theme – greed
  17. the Pardoner’s primary motivation for telling his tale
  18. “The Wife of Bath’s Tale”
  19. knight’s crime
  20. answer to the question – “What do women desire most?”

From the Renaissance…

  1. Shakespearean sonnets
  2. sonnet form
  3. significance of last two lines
  4. “Sonnet 116”
  5. description of love as eternal
  6. theme – true love never dies
  7. “Sonnet 130”
  8. theme – love is blind
  9. The Globe Theater
  10. How plays were staged
  11. Macbeth and William Shakespeare
  12. Themes – ambition; blood
  13. Characters
  14. the three witches
  15. apparitions
  16. Macbeth
  17. motivation for killing Banquo
  18. cause of strange behavior at banquet
  19. Lady Macbeth
  20. motivation for killing herself
  21. King Duncan
  22. Malcolm and Donalbain
  23. Malcolm’s test of Macduff
  24. Macduff
  25. Banquo

From the Turbulent Time Unit…

  1. The Industrial revolution
  2. Generally, what societal shift happened in England?
  3. “Holy Sonnet 10”
  4. message the author wants to convey to audience
  5. How might one wake to eternal life after death?
  6. “To His Coy Mistress” / “To the Virgins, to Make Most of Time”
  7. carpe diem
  8. “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning”
  9. compass metaphor
  10. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
  11. Lilliputian wars – how satire?
  12. Lilliputian war – subject of dispute
  13. Big-endian v. Little-endian
  14. king of Brodingnag – target of satire?
  15. “A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
  16. satirical techniques used
  17. main purpose in writing his essay

From Romanticism…

  1. Dates of era and significant publication that inspired the movement
  2. Elements of romantic writing
  3. “Tintern Abbey” by Wordsworth
  4. message about nature
  5. the power of memory
  6. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Coleridge
  7. the moral of the Ancient Mariner’s story
  8. cause of the curse
  9. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  10. Elements of Gothicism
  11. type of narrative structure
  12. themes: dangers of “playing God,” the need for companionship
  13. character quotes

From A Time of Rapid Change (1901-present)…

  1. Modernism – view of reality in fragments of images and speech
  2. “To An Athlete Dying Young”
  3. Theme – tragedy of an early death; fleeting glory
  4. “When You are Old” by William Butler Yeats
  5. WWI poems – “The Soldier” “The Wirers” “Anthem for Doomed Youth”
  6. Theme and tone of each poem
  7. “Eveline” by James Joyce
  8. Choice made by Eveline – Whether or not to go with Frank
  9. Conflict – internal (man versus self)
  10. “The Rocking Horse Winner”
  11. Why Paul bets on horses
  12. symbol of luck – horse-racing
  13. theme – the psychology of materialism