SAT II Literature : Effect of Specified Text: Poetry
Study concepts, example questions & explanations for SAT II Literature
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Example Questions
Example Question #21 : Effect Of Specified Text
The Good Morrow
(1633)
I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I
Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?
But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?
Or snorted we in the Seven Sleepers’ den?
’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
If ever any beauty I did see,
Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.
And now good-morrow to our waking souls,
Which watch not one another out of fear;
For love, all love of other sights controls,
And makes one little room an everywhere.
Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.
My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp north, without declining west?
Whatever dies, was not mixed equally;
If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.
The transition from the first to second stanza is characterized by __________.
A shift from contemplating physical love to romantic love
A shift from contemplating general love to the particular beloved
All of these
A shift from past to present
A change in meter
All of these
A change in meter: The last line of the first stanza is in iambic hexameter (stressed-unstressed, six feet), and the first line of the second stanza is iambic pentameter (stressed-unstressed, five feet).
A shift from past to present: In the second stanza, the speaker uses the word "now," and the verb tense shifts to the present ("waking").
A shift from contemplating physical love to romantic love: After spending stanza one thinking about "pleasures" and beauty "desired and got," the word "souls" in stanza two signals that now we are talking about a different kind of love.
A shift from contemplating general love to the particular beloved: At the end of stanza one, the word "thee" is a hinge that takes the speaker to the next stanza, where he will continue to describe his beloved.
Passage adapted from John Donne's "The Good Morrow" (1633).
Example Question #22 : Effect Of Specified Text
The descriptor "mysterious" in line 32 emphasizes ________________.
the speaker's inability to understand the sacrifice
the speaker's wonder
the dubious character of the priest
the speaker's disgust at this artistic deptiction
the familiarity of the speaker with this religion
the speaker's wonder
The adjective "mysterious" in line 32 emphasizes the speaker's wonder at this ancient and therefore far-away world which he is looking at depicted in artwork. It is not so much the case that the speaker does not understand what the sacrifice means, or who the priest is or why he is depicted as doing what he is doing. Rather, the word "mysterious" reinforces the whole tone of the poem, which is one of wonder and awe.
Passage adapted from John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819)
Example Question #21 : Effect Of Specified Text: Poetry
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
(1918)
The highlighted text most effectively conveys: __________.
The poem’s temporality
The poem’s setting
The speaker’s contingency
The speaker's tone
All of these
The speaker's tone
The "black" hours, the "O," and the exclamation after "night" all serve to emphasize the speaker's lamentation and despair.
Though the emphasis on time might make "temporality" seem like a tempting answer, the particular time in which the poem takes place is not particularly significant. In the context of the poem's overall meaning, establishing tone is more important in these lines.
Passage adapted from "[I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day]" (1918) by Gerald Manley Hopkins.
Example Question #181 : Overall Language Or Specific Words, Phrases, Or Sentences
- 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,
- Our love shall live, and later life renew.
In line 10, the poet contrasts the word “dust” with which word?
Live
Verse
Fame
Die
You
Fame
This line contains two pairs of contrasting words:
“die” and “live”
“dust” and “fame”
“. . . To DIE in DUST, but you shall LIVE by FAME.”
In other words: "They'll get death and dust -- you'll get life and fame."
Passage adapted from Edmund Spenser's "Sonnet 75" (1594)
Example Question #25 : Effect Of Specified Text
1. Better to see your cheek grown hollow,
2. Better to see your temple worn,
3. Than to forget to follow, follow,
4. After the sound of a silver horn.
5. Better to bind your brow with willow
6. And follow, follow until you die,
7. Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,
8. Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.
9. Better to see your cheek grow sallow
10. And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,
11. Than to forget to hallo, hallo,
12. After the milk-white hounds of the moon.
The author’s reason for using the word “silver” to describe the “horn” (line 4) is likely all of the following EXCEPT _____________.
to associate the horn with the mystery of night and moonlight
to imply that the horn is less expensive than the pillow
to suggest that the horn and the hunt would glow brightly in the darkness
to suggest the pure tone of the horn
to alliterate “silver” with “sound”
to imply that the horn is less expensive than the pillow
The poem says nothing about monetary values. The life represented by the horn is argued to be preferable to that represented by the pillow, but the objects themselves are metaphorical.
The word “silver” creates alliteration (“Sound of a Silver horn”.) It associates the horn with the night and the silver moonlight. Silver is a symbol of purity. The word heightens the image of a “milk white” hunt glowing brightly in the night.
Passage adapted from Eleanor Wylie's "A Madman's Song" (1921)
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