All SAT II Literature Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #1 : Genre
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."
This poem is a(n) __________.
conceit
elegy
pastoral poem
epic poem
sonnet
elegy
This early-seventeenth-century poem, "On my First Son," by the Englishman, Ben Jonson, is an elegy, as it commemorates a dead person.
Example Question #61 : Literary Analysis
1 Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
2 Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
3 Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
4 And summer’s lease hath all too short a date:
5 Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
6 And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;
7 And every fair from fair sometime declines,
8 By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimm’d;
9 But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
10 Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
11 Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
12 When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st;
13 So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
14 So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
This poem is a(n) __________.
pastoral
elegy
ballad
epic
sonnet
sonnet
This poem is a sonnet. Specifically, it is a Shakespearean or an English sonnet, characterized by 14 lines written in iambic pentameter, concluding with a rhyming couplet.
Example Question #51 : Literary Analysis Of British Poetry
Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear
1 Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear,
2 Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste;
3 The vacant leaves thy mind’s impr'nt will bear,
4 And of this book this learning mayst thou taste:
5 The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show
6 Of mouthèd graves will give thee memory;
7 Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know
8 Time’s thievish progress to eternity.
9 Look what thy memory cannot contain,
10 Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find
11 Those children nursed, delivered from thy brain,
12 To take a new acquaintance of thy mind.
13 These offices, so oft as thou wilt look,
14 Shall profit thee and much enrich thy book.
(1609)
This poem is a(n) __________.
Petrarchan Sonnet
Ballad
Epic
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet
Elegy
English (Shakespearean) Sonnet
This poem is an English (Shakespearean) Sonnet, which has 14 lines written in iambic pentameter and has the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g.
(Passage adapted from "Sonnet 77" by William Shakespeare)
Example Question #4 : Genre, Style, Tone, Mood, And Other Literary Features
In pious times, e’r Priest-craft did begin,
Before Polygamy was made a Sin;
When Man on many multipli’d his kind,
E’r one to one was cursedly confin’d,
When Nature prompted and no Law deni’d (5)
Promiscuous Use of Concubine and Bride;
Then Israel’s Monarch, after Heavens own heart,
His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart
To Wives and Slaves: And, wide as his Command,
Scatter’d his Maker’s Image through the Land. (10)
(1681)
What genre of poem is this?
Tragedy
Satire
Kunstlerroman
Bildungsroman
Comedy of errors
Satire
Satire is a genre in which irony, sarcasm, humor, and parody are used to make a broader social or political point, and this is the genre we have here. The author’s use of irony and exaggeration of the benefits of polygamy are used later in the poem to make a broader point about the author’s current political climate. Bildungsromans are coming-of-age stories (e.g. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye or Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations). Similarly, Kunstlerromans are coming-of-age stories specifically about artists or young people with artistic sensibilities (e.g. James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). A comedy of errors is a lighthearted and often satirical work of literature that usually involves farcical situations and cases of mistaken identity or similar misunderstanding (e.g. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream).
Passage adapted from “Absalom and Achitophel,” by John Dryden (1681)
Example Question #1 : Genre: Poetry
1 O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
2 The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won,
3 The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
4 While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
5 But O heart! heart! heart!
6 O the bleeding drops of red,
7 Where on the deck my Captain lies,
8 Fallen cold and dead.
(1865)
What type of poem is this?
Haiku
Elegy
Epic
Ode
Eulogy
Elegy
Though similar in function, the elegy is distinct from the epitaph, the ode, and the eulogy: the epitaph is very brief; the ode solely exalts; and the eulogy is most often written in formal prose. Also, the elegy is typically written in response to the death of a person.
(Passage adapted from "O Captain! My Captain!" by Walt Whitman, ln. 1-8, 1865)
Example Question #2 : Genre: Eighteenth And Nineteenth Century Poetry
'Hard by yon Wood, now frowning as in Scorn,
'Mutt'ring his wayward Fancies he wou'd rove,
'Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
'Or craz'd with Care, or cross'd in hopeless Love.
'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd Hill, (5)
'Along the Heath, and near his fav'rite Tree;
'Another came; nor yet beside the Rill,
'Nor up the Lawn, nor at the Wood was he.
'The next with Dirges due in sad Array
'Slow thro' the Church-way Path we saw him born. (10)
'Approach and read (for thou canst read) the Lay,
'Grav'd on the Stone beneath yon aged Thorn.
(1751)
What genre of poem is this?
Elegy
Villanelle
Pantoum
Ode
Sonnet
Elegy
Based on the mournful tone, the narrative content, and the use of words like “Dirges,” we can assume that this is an elegiac poem. An ode is a lyric poem expressing love for someone or something, and a sonnet is generally a 14-line love poem. A villanelle is a 19-line poem that follows specific rules of repeating lines, and a pantoum is a similar poetic form.
Excerpt adapted from Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. (1751)
Example Question #1 : Genre, Style, Tone, Mood, And Other Literary Features
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot; (5)
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
(1833)
Based on these lines, in what genre is this poem written?
Bildungsroman
Confessional
Encomium
Elegy
Pastoral
Pastoral
The poem is idealizing rural, agrarian life in these lines. This is a classic feature of a pastoral. An elegy is a poem mourning someone’s death. An encomium is a speech that enthusiastically and formally praises someone or something. Bildungsromans are coming-of-age stories (e.g. J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951) or Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations (1861)).
Passage adapted from “The Lady of Shalott,” Poems by Alfred Tennyson (1833).
Example Question #1 : Genre, Style, Tone, Mood, And Other Literary Features
This poem contains elements of what genre?
Gothic
Burlesque
Pastoral
Shakespearean sonnet
Parody
Pastoral
This poem contains strong elements of the pastoral genre. Pastoral poetry or literature takes as its subject matter rural life. Shepherds are often the main characters, and the setting is usually the countryside or a forest. In addition, these elements are idealized in pastoral; rural life is presented as being perfect, peaceful, and blissful--never gritty realism, etc.
Passage adapted from John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819)