GRE Subject Test: Literature in English : Identification of British Poetry to 1660

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for GRE Subject Test: Literature in English

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Example Question #241 : Identification

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
Hardship endured oft.
Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
Known on my keel many a care's hold,
And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
While she tossed close to cliffs.

These lines, originally written in Old English, are from an eleventh-century poem about a man sailing alone and his relationship to God. From which of the following poems is this passage taken?

Possible Answers:

The Canterbury Tales

Beowulf

The Wanderer

The Seafarer

Pyramus and Thisbe

Correct answer:

The Seafarer

Explanation:

Translated by Ezra Pound, these are the opening lines of the anonymous 11th-century poem The Seafarer. The first-person poem appears in the Exeter Book, a canonical anthology of early poetry.

Passage adapted from The Seafarer l.1-8 (trans. Pound 1911)

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All GRE Subject Test: Literature in English Resources

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