English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 1 Name: Respond to each of the following passages by identifying the author, the title of the work along with a description of the situation found in the text and what that could be taken to mean. I m not looking for any particular answer or answers, but for answers that are well explained and developed. Each element of each answer is worth one (1) point, except for (up to two points) and (up to three points). Your name is also worth one point. 'What did I do?' she asked. 'Walked into the pond,' he replied. He had begun to shudder like one sick, and could hardly attend to her. Her eyes remained full on him, he seemed to be going dark in his mind, looking back at her helplessly. The shuddering became quieter in him, his life came back in him, dark and unknowing, but strong again. 'Was I out of my mind?' she asked, while her eyes were fixed on him all the time. 'Maybe, for the moment,' he replied. He felt quiet, because his strength had come back. The strange fretful strain had left him. What passing-bells for those who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 2 I, too, have dropped off fear Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon, And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn; And witnessed exultation Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl, Shine and lift up with passion of oblation, Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul. And thereupon That beautiful mild woman for whose sake There's many a one shall find out all heartache On finding that her voice is sweet and low Replied, "To be born woman is to know -- Although they do not talk of it at school -- That we must labour to be beautiful."
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 3 The only communication these men have with their friends, is through two close iron gratings, with an intermediate space of about a yard in width between the two, so that nothing can be handed across, nor can the prisoner have any communication by touch with the person who visits him. The married men have a separate grating, at which to see their wives, but its construction is the same. If I should die, think only this of me: That there s some corner of a foreign field That is forever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her way to roam, A body of England s, breathing English air, Washed by the river, blest by the suns of home.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 4 THAT is no country for old men. The young In one another's arms, birds in the trees - Those dying generations - at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 5 "Mistress, I dug upon your grave To bury a bone, in case I should be hungry near this spot When passing on my daily trot. I am sorry, but I quite forgot It was your resting-place." This other man I had dreamed A drunken, vainglorious lout. He had done most bitter wrong To some who are near my heart, Yet I number him in the song;
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 6 This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of God Amen and so forth. (One) That me and you will settle this matter together: i.e., to be Kings of Kafiristan. (Two) That you and me will not while this matter is being settled, look at any Liquor, nor any Woman black, white or brown, so as to get mixed up with one or the other harmful. (Three) That we conduct ourselves with Dignity and Discretion, and if one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him. Signed by you and me this day. Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan. Daniel Dravot. Both Gentlemen at Large. If but some vengeful god would call to me From up the sky, and laugh: Though suffering thing, Know that they sorrow is my ecstasy, That they love s loss is my hate s profiting.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 7 In fear and shame she looked at his naked body, that she had known falsely. And he was the father of her children. Her soul was torn from her body and stood apart. She looked at his naked body and was ashamed, as if she had denied it. After all, it was itself. It seemed awful to her. She looked at his face, and she turned her own face to the wall. For his look was other than hers, his way not her way. She had denied what he was she saw it now. She had refused him as himself. And this had been her life, and his life. She was grateful to death, which restored the truth. And she knew she was not dead. GOOD-MORNING; good-morning! the General said When we met him last week on our way to the line. Now the soldiers he smiled at are most of em dead, And we re cursing his staff for incompetent swine. He s a cheery old card, grunted Harry to Jack 5 As they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack..... But he did for them both by his plan of attack.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 8 A-------: I really don t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I ll certainly try to forget the fact. J---: I have no doubt about that, dear A---. The Divorce Court was specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously constituted. Dinner was ready. Here was the soup. It was a plain gravy soup. There was nothing to stir the fancy in that. Once could have seen through the transparent liquid any patter that there might have been on the plate itself. But there was no pattern. The plate was plain. Nudes stark and glistening,
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 9 Yelling in lurid glee. Grinning faces And raging limbs Whirl over the floor one fire. For a shirt verminously busy Yon soldier tore from his throat, with oaths Godhead might shrink at, but not the lice. And soon the shirt was aflare Over the candle he d lit while we lay. The wheels lurched over sprawled dead But pained them not, though their bones crunched, Their shut mouths made no moan. They lie there huddled, friend and foeman, Man born of man, and born of woman, And shells go crying over them From night till night and now. Earth has waited for them, All the time of their growth Fretting for their decay: Now she has them at last! In the strength of their strength Suspended--stopped and held.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 10 They was cruel enough to feed him up in the temple, because they said he was more of a god than old Daniel that was a man. Then they turned him out on the snow, and told him to go home, and Peachey came home in about a year, begging along the roads quite safe; for Daniel Dravot he walked before and said: Come along, Peachey. It s a big thing we re doing. The mountains they danced at night, and the mountains they tried to fall on Peachey s head, but Dan he held up his hand, and Peachey came along bent double. He never let go of Dan s hand, and he never let go of Dan s head. They gave it to him as a present in the temple, to remind him not to come again, and though the crown was pure gold, and Peachey was starving, never would Peachey sell the same. You knew Dravot, sir! You knew Right Worshipful Brother Dravot! Look at him now! There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 11 J---. But my dear Lady Bracknell, the matter is entirely in your own hands. The moment you consent to my marriage with Gwendolen, I will most gladly allow your nephew to form an alliance with my ward. Lady B--------: [Rising and drawing herself up.] You must be quite aware that what you propose is out of the question. J---: Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward to. Lady B--------: That is not the destiny I propose for Gwendolen. You can t believe that British troops retire When hell s last horror breaks them, and they run, 10 Trampling the terrible corpses blind with blood. O German mother dreaming by the fire, While you are knitting socks to send your son His face is trodden deeper in the mud.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 12 Over the mirrors meant To glass the opulent The sea-worm crawls grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent. Jewels in joy designed To ravish the sensuous mind Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind. And many a skeleton shook his head. Instead of preaching forty year, My neighbor Parson Thirdly said, I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer. Again the guns disturbed the hour, Roaring in their readiness to avenge, As far inland as Stourton Tower, And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 13 I think he died for me, she answered. A vague terror seized Gabriel at this answer as if, at that hour when he had hoped to triumph, some impalpable and vindictive being was coming against him, gathering forces against him in its vague world. But he shook himself free of it with an effort of reason and continued to caress her hand. He did not question her again for he felt that she would tell him of herself. No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of aesthetic, not merely historical, criticism.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 14 There was a whispering in my hearth, A sigh of the coal, Grown wistful of a former earth It might recall. I listened for a tale of leaves And smothered ferns, Frond-forests, and the low sly lives Before the fawns. THE Bishop tells us: When the boys come back They will not be the same; for they ll have fought In a just cause: they lead the last attack On Anti-Christ; their comrades blood has bought New right to breed an honourable race, They have challenged Death and dared him face to face.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 15 You would not know him now But still he died Nobly, so cover him over With violets of pride Purple from Severn side. Cover him, cover him soon! And with thick-set Masses of memoried flowers- Hide that red wet Thing I must somehow forget. Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two -- Who for his hours of life had chattered through Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent: Yet faced unbroken wires; stepped over, and went A noble fool, faithful to his stripes -- and ended. But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chance Of line -- to fight in the line, lay down under unbroken Wires, and saw the flashes and kept unshaken, Till the politest voice -- a finicking accent, said: Do you think you might crawl through there: there's a hole.'
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 16 The preface of our text states that certain literary works, arousing enduring admiration, have achieved sufficient prominence to serve as widespread models for other writers and thus to constitute something approximating a canon.... Any individual text s claim to attention is subject to constant debate and revision; established texts are jostled by new arrivals and by previous neglected claimants; and the boundaries between the literary and what is thought to be nonliterary are constantly challenged and redrawn (xxxiii). Taking this into account, write a brief argument expostulating at least three reasons why any one of the works we have read belong in the so-called canon. Evidence from the work must be provided and explained in a way that supports your thesis/claim about your chosen piece. You may use additional paper is you so desire.
English 209 Fall 2011 Final Exam 17