SAT II Literature : Content
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT II Literature
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Example Questions
Example Question #13 : Characterization And Motivation: Drama
A bell rings in the hall; shortly afterwards the door is heard to open.
Enter NORA, humming a tune and in high spirits. She is in out-door dress and carries a number of parcels; these she lays on the table to the right. She leaves the outer door open after her, and through it is seen a PORTER who is carrying a Christmas Tree and a basket, which he gives to the MAID who has opened the door.)
Nora: Hide the Christmas Tree carefully, Helen. Be sure the children do not see it till this evening, when it is dressed. (To the PORTER, taking out her purse.) How much?
Porter: Sixpence.
Nora: There is a shilling. No, keep the change. (The PORTER thanks her, and goes out. NORA shuts the door. She is laughing to herself, as she takes off her hat and coat. She takes a packet of macaroons from her pocket and eats one or two; then goes cautiously to her husband's door and listens.) Yes, he is in. (Still humming, she goes to the table on the right.)
Helmer: (calls out from his room). Is that my little lark twittering out there?
Nora (busy opening some of the parcels): Yes, it is!
Helmer: Is it my little squirrel bustling about?
Nora: Yes!
Helmer: When did my squirrel come home?
Nora: Just now. (Puts the bag of macaroons into her pocket and wipes her mouth.) Come in here, Torvald, and see what I have bought.
Helmer: Don't disturb me. (A little later, he opens the door and looks into the room, pen in hand.) Bought, did you say? All these things? Has my little spendthrift been wasting money again?
Nora: Yes, but, Torvald, this year we really can let ourselves go a little. This is the first Christmas that we have not needed to economize.
Helmer: Still, you know, we can't spend money recklessly.
Nora: Yes, Torvald, we may be a wee bit more reckless now, mayn't we? Just a tiny wee bit! You are going to have a big salary and earn lots and lots of money.
Helmer: Yes, after the New Year; but then it will be a whole quarter before the salary is due.
Nora: Pooh! we can borrow till then.
(1879)
Which is the most significant difference in how Nora and Helmer speak to each other?
She calls him by his first name and he does not use her name at all
He is domineering and she is submissive
He sounds erudite and she sounds uneducated
He speaks humorously and she speaks seriously
She is patient and loving and he is quick-tempered and cruel
She calls him by his first name and he does not use her name at all
The most significant difference in how these two characters speak to each other is that she consistently calls him by his first name (Torvald) and he refers to her only as "my little squirrel" or, later, "my little spend thrift. Their dialogue does not suggest any significant difference in level of education or humorousness. Nora is not submissive to Helmer. In fact, she argues with him. And he is critical of her, but not necessarily quick-tempered or cruel.
Passage adapted from Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879)
Example Question #141 : Content
1 Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy;
2 My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.
3 Seven years thou wert lent to me, and I thee pay,
4 Exacted by thy fate, on the just day.
5 Oh, could I lose all father now! For why
6 Will man lament the state he should envy?
7 To have so soon 'scaped world's and flesh's rage,
8 And if no other misery, yet age!
9 Rest in soft peace, and, asked, say, "Here doth lie
10 Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry,
11 For whose sake, henceforth, all his vows be such
12 As what he loves may never like too much."
Who is the speaker of this poem?
A friend of Ben Jonson
A sorrowful playmate of the deceased
An anonymous grieving father
The speaker cannot be determined
The grieving father and poet, Ben Jonson
The grieving father and poet, Ben Jonson
The speaker of this poem is the grieving father and poet, Ben Jonson. "Here doth lie / Ben Jonson his best piece of poetry," (Lines 9–10)
Example Question #2 : Context, Speaker, And Addressee
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
1 How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
2 I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
3 My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
4 For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
5 I love thee to the level of everyday's
6 Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
7 I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
8 I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
9 I love thee with the passion put to use
10 In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
11 I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
12 With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,
13 Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,
14 I shall but love thee better after death.
For whom is this poem likely intended?
The speaker's friend
The speaker's lover
God
The speaker's soul
The lost saints
The speaker's lover
This poem is very likely intended for the speaker's lover as evidenced by the first line "How do I love thee?" and subsequent lines. Note the number of lines that begin with "I love thee." God, the lost saints, and the speaker's soul are used only to articulate the speaker's love for another.
Example Question #3 : Context, Speaker, And Addressee
1 Devouring time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
2 And Make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
3 Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
4 And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
5 Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleet'st
6 And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed time,
7 To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
8 But I forbid thee one most heinous crime,
9 O carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
10 Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen.
11 Him in thy course untainted do allow,
12 For yet beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
13 Yet do thy worst, old time; despite thy wrong,
14 My love shall in my verse ever live young.
(1609)
To whom is the poet speaking?
None of the answers
The poet's beloved
Time
People in general
A young man
Time
The poet is speaking to time. The poem begins with the apostrophe "Devouring time," (line 1). In line 6, the poet says, "And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed time." The poet also ends by telling time to "do thy worst, old time" (line 13).
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 19" by William Shakespeare)
Example Question #2 : Literary Analysis Of American Poetry Before 1925
A Late Walk
1 When I go up through the mowing field,
2 The headless aftermath,
3 Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
4 Half closes the garden path.
5 And when I come to the garden ground,
6 The whir of sober birds
7 Up from the tangle of withered weeds
8 Is sadder than any words
9 A tree beside the wall stands bare,
10 But a leaf that lingered brown,
11 Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
12 Comes softly rattling down.
13 I end not far from my going forth
14 By picking the faded blue
15 Of the last remaining aster flower
16 To carry again to you.
The speaker in the poem is very probably addressing .
a loved one
a stranger
an acquaintance
a fellow veteran
a legal adviser
a loved one
The speaker in the poem is very probably addressing a loved one as he picks "again" for him or her, in the last stanza, the last remaining aster flower.
Example Question #51 : Identifying And Analyzing Main Ideas In Humanities Passages
Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, expos’d to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun cloth, i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ’mongst vulgars mayst thou roam.
In critics' hands, beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known,
If for thy father askt, say, thou hadst none:
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus’d her thus to send thee out of door.
All of the following emotions can be attributed to the speaker EXCEPT __________.
self-deprecation
None of the other answers is correct.
justifiable pride
grudging acceptance
embarassment
justifiable pride
While Bradstreet at turns expresses embarassment and self-deprecation about her poetry, and finally accepts that her poems are now out in the world whether she wants them to be or not, she does not give evidence of any particular pride in this.
Passage adapted from "The Author to Her Book" by Anne Bradstreet (1678)
Example Question #1 : Context, Speaker, And Addressee: Poetry
1 Those lines that I before have writ do lie,
Even those that said I could not love you dearer;
Yet then my judgment knew no reason why
My most full flame should afterwards burn clearer.
5 But reckoning Time, whose million'd accidents
Creep in 'twixt vows and change decrees of kings,
Tan sacred beauty, blunt the sharp'st intents,
Divert strong minds to the course of altering things;
9 Alas, why, fearing of Time's tyranny,
Might I not then say 'Now I love you best,'
When I was certain o'er incertainty,
Crowning the present, doubting of the rest?
13 Love is a babe; then might I not say so,
To give full growth to that which still doth grow?
(1609)
The speaker of the poem is addressing _______________.
a king for whom the poetry is written
a former lover
a current lover and recipient of previous poetry
a group of people
a fellow poet
a current lover and recipient of previous poetry
The poet is addressing a beloved for whom he has written poetry before, and whom he continues to love. Lines 1-2 make it clear that the addressee is the subject of previous poems. By referring to love as "that which still doth grow" in line 14, the poet makes it clear that he still loves the addressee, and indeed, continues to love this person more and more as time passes.
Passage adapted from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 115" (1609)
Example Question #141 : Content
1 They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
2 Love and desire and hate:
3 I think they have no portion in us after
4 We pass the gate.
5 They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
6 Out of a misty dream
7 Our path emerges for a while, then closes
8 Within a dream.
(1896)
"Us" (line 3), "we" (line 4), and "our" (line 7) refer to whom?
The speaker and his beloved
A specific group of friends who celebrate together
Humanity in general
Spirits who appear in dreams
The speaker
Humanity in general
This poem is a meditation on the briefness of not one specific human life, but human life in general. It discusses the common experience of all people that life is "not long" (lines 1, 5). Thus, when the poet mentions "us" or "we," he is referring not to any specific people, but to all of humankind, of which he is a part.
Passage adapted from "They are not long" by Ernest Dowson (1896)
Example Question #1 : Context, Speaker, And Addressee
Of arms I sing, and of the man, whom Fate
First drove from Troy to the Lavinian shore.
Full many an evil, through the mindful hate
Of cruel Juno, from the gods he bore,
Much tost on earth and ocean, yea, and more (5)
In war enduring, ere he built a home,
And his loved household-deities brought o’er
To Latium, whence the Latin people come,
Whence rose the Alban sires, and walls of lofty Rome.
In line 3, what does “Full many an evil” refer to?
The narrator’s past deeds
The hardships the narrator endured
The foundation of Rome
The Latin people’s response to the narrator’s arrival
The narrator’s worship of unholy deities
The hardships the narrator endured
Read with line 4, we get the phrase “Full many an evil… he bore,” which answers the question easily. The phrase in line 3 thus describes the narrator’s many travails in his journey to found Rome.
Passage adapted from Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. E. Fairfax Taylor. (1907)
Example Question #1 : Context, Speaker, And Addressee: Poetry
… It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:(5)
How small and white my face!—
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea... (10)
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me....
(1919)
Based on context, the narrator likely sees himself as which of the following?
Diminutive
Ageless
Quizzical
Chary
Pugnacious
Diminutive
In line 6, the narrator exclaims: “How small and white my face!” This exclamation, coupled with the narrator’s reverence for the enormous world around him, indicates that diminutive (small) is the best choice. Chary (cautious, wary) and quizzical (puzzled) have no textual support. Similarly, pugnacious (aggressive) and ageless cannot be supported by the text.
Passage adapted from Conrad Aiken’s “Morning Song From ‘Senlin.’” Modern American Poetry, ed.Louis Untermeyer. (1919)
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