Western Literature
Final Exam Study Guide
I. Literary Terms (10 points)
In this part of the exam, you will be given up to TWENTY literary terms in one column, and you will have to “match” the
words to their definitions. You can find the literary terms under “literary terms” on the website
Example:
1.
metaphor
2.
climax
3.
alliteration
4.
personification
5.
stanza
A. The repetition of initial vowel or consonant sounds
B. giving human characteristics to something that is not human.
C. a “verse paragraph.”
D. the most exciting point in a story’s plot; the peak of tension.
E. The comparison of two different things not using the words “like” or “as.”
II. Authors of Stories and Poems (10 points)
In this part of the exam, you will be given the names of at least TEN authors, and you will have to either “match” the
authors to their descriptions or answer multiple-choice question about the authors. You will only be responsible to
recognize the names of the stories/poems and a couple of facts about them, which are shown in the table below:
A. The most famous British poet and playwright from the late 1500s-early 1600s. Wrote
such works as Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and 150 love sonnets.
B. Perhaps the most famous American poet who wrote “The Road Not Taken,” “Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” and “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” He often uses very clear
rhyme scheme and meter and often writes about nature.
C. American writer who wrote many horror stories, like “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and
sorrowful love poems like “Annabel Lee.” He died at age 40 and had a young wife who
also died very young.
D. An American woman poet who wrote many short poems, most of which were not
published until after she died. She lived a very quiet life and wrote poems such as “I’m
Nobody! Who Are You?”
E. A Scottish poet famous for his love poetry. He wrote “A Red, Red Rose.”
F. American woman poet famous for her feminist poetry. She had a mental breakdown
in her early 20s and killed herself at age 30, leaving behind an ex-husband and two
children. She wrote the poem “Metaphors.”
G. The British author who wrote in the 1600s and was famous for his “holy sonnets”
about religious matters. He was a Christian who believed in heaven and wrote “Death,
Be Not Proud” and “No Man is an Island.”
H. A British-American author from the 1900s. His modernist writing is famous for being
heavy with allusions and being very difficult to understand. He wrote “Winter Evening
Settles Down.”
I. One of the major British “Romantic” poet from the early 1800s. He wrote
“Ozymandias.”
J. American “Romantic” poet from the 1800s who wrote a lot about nature. He wrote “I
Would Not Always Reason.”
K. A young American writer who fought in the American Civil War and was famous for his
“war poetry.” He was very disillusioned with war, humanity, and religion. He wrote “The
Heart” and “I Saw a Man Chasing the Horizon.”
L. Two German brothers famous for their (sometimes rather dark) fairy tales. They wrote
“Godfather Death” and “The Star-Money.”
M. Famous American “expatriate” writer who lived abroad after the war. He was an
alcoholic and often wrote very depressing literature. He was famous for writing about
war and for the misogynism in his works. He wrote “Cat in the Rain.”
N. American woman writer famous for her feminism. She wrote “Story of an Hour.”
O. One of the most famous modernist American writers who wrote a lot about the South
and was famous for the stream-of-consciousness technique. He wrote “A Rose for Miss
Emily.”
P. American writer who wrote a lot for Hollywood. He wrote “The Chaser.”
Q. An American writer who worked for many years as a children’s doctor. He wrote “The
Use of Force.”
R. American playwright from the late 1900s. She was famous for her feminism and her
writing about women’s identity issues. She wrote the play “Man in a Case.”
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
William Shakespeare
Robert Frost
Edgar Allan Poe
Emily Dickinson
Robert Burns
Sylvia Plath
John Donne
T.S. Eliot
Percy Bysshe Shelley
William Cullen Bryant
Stephen Crane
The Brothers Grimm
Ernest Hemingway
Kate Chopin
William Faulkner
John Collier
William Carlos Williams
Wendy Wasserstein
Answers:
1. A
2. B
3. C
4. D
5. E
6. F
7. G
8. H
9. I
10. J
11. K
12. L
13. M
14. N
15. O
16. P
17. Q
18. R
Example of a Multiple-Choice Question:
Directions: Choose the letter in front of the best answer and write it in the blank after the question number.
1.
The author who wrote in the 1600s and was famous for his “holy sonnets” is
Christian who believed in heaven and wrote “Death, Be Not Proud” and “No Man is an Island.”
. He was a
(A) Percy Bysshe Shelley
(B) Stephen Crane
(C) John Donne
(D) William Cullen Bryant
(E) Robert Burns
(F) None of the above
III. Literary Analysis of New Story (20 points)
In this part of the exam, you will read a short story and then answer some questions about it that will show your
understanding of the literary concepts we have studied. It will be just like the literary analysis questions from the
midterm exam, but it will be a different story you’ve never read before. Make sure you understand these questions. Very
similar questions will appear in the same format on the exam.
1) In 1-4 sentences, briefly summarize the story’s plot.
2) List three important things we learn in the story’s exposition.
3) What is the story’s conflict?
4) Where is the story’s climax?
5) What is the story’s resolution?
6) What is the story’s point of view (first-person, third-person omniscient, third-person limited, or third-person objective)?
7) Who are the major characters? Are they flat or round? Are they static or dynamic?
8) Who are the minor characters? Are they flat or round? Are they static or dynamic?
9) How is the major character characterized?
10) What is the setting of the story?
11) How would you describe the author’s style? Discuss such things as syntax and diction to explain what the author’s style is.
12) What is the speaker’s tone in the first few paragraphs of the story? (YOU WILL GET NO POINTS if you say “happy,” “sad,”
or “angry.” You must choose a different word to describe the tone. If you think the tone sounds “sad,” then use another word
like “mournful,” “sorrowful,” “grieved,” “dejected,” etc., to describe the tone. It may be helpful to learn more “tone words” before
the exam.) Discussing such things as style, syntax, diction, connotation, and choice of details, explain how you know the
speaker’s tone.
13) What is the story’s mood?
14) What is one word from the story with positive connotation? What is one word with negative connotation? What is one
word with neutral connotation?
15) Is there any irony in the story? Of the three types of irony we discussed in class, which type of irony is it?
16) What do you think is the story’s theme?
17) What do you think is an example of a symbol in the story, and what does it symbolize (mean)?
IV. Poetry Identification (40 points)
In this section, you will have to answer either multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, short-answer, or matching questions
about the poems that we have studied or new poetry we have not studied. (I will provide vocabulary definitions for
poetry we haven’t studied, but not for poems we’ve studied.) In each case, you will be given a poem or a line of poetry
and have to answer a question or several questions about it. You should study be able to do the following things:
1) Be able to identify the rhyme scheme of a poem.
2) Be able to choose (from a list of choices) what kind of meter: iambic pentameter, anapestic heptameter, trochaic trimeter,
dactylic tetrameter, etc.
3) Be able to identify any of the different figures of speech we discussed in class listed on the website (metaphor, simile,
personification, hyperbole, apostrophe, paradox, oxymoron, symbolism, imagery).
4) Be able to tell the theme of the poem in one sentence.
5) Be able to discuss who the speaker of a poem is (generally).
6) Be able to identify the tone and explain how you know, talking about such things as diction, connotation, style, and
subject matter.
7) Talk about how the “sound” of the poem adds to the meaning (euphony, cacophony, alliteration, assonance, etc.)
8) Talk a little bit about how your knowledge of an author’s life can help you to understand the significance of a poem.
Example questions:
Directions: Write the letter next to the best answer in the blank beside the question number.
1.
What poetic device can you see in the following line of poetry?:
“Oh lonely road, all alone; we’ll look longingly along you as long as life lets us.”
(A) alliteration
(B) assonance
(C) euphony
(D) apostrophe
(E) All of the above
(F) None of the above
Answer questions 2-3 about the following two lines of poetry:
So I looked and I saw but I could not believe what my eyes saw was really the truth.
Life is odd, life is strange, but I’ve really ne’er seen anything such as this since my youth!
2.
What is the meter for the following line of poetry?:
(A) iambic pentameter
(C) dactylic heptameter
(B) trochaic tetrameter
(D) anapestic heptameter
(E) iambic octameter
(F) None of the above
3.
What kind of verse is this poem?
(A) free verse
(C) couplet
(B) quatrain
(D) sonnet
(E) All of the above
(F) None of the above
Answer questions 4-9 based on the following three lines of poetry from “Death Be Not Proud” by John Donne:
Death, be not proud. Though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.
For those whom thou thinkst thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
4.
What figure of speech can you see in these first four lines?
(A) apostrophe
(C) personification
(B) paradox
(D) Both A and C
(E) All of the above
(F) None of the above
5.
Look at line 4 to determine the poem’s meter.
(A) dactylic trimeter
(C) iambic tetrameter
(B) anapestic tetrameter
(D) iambic pentameter
(E) trochaic pentameter
(F) None of the above
6.
What is the rhyme scheme of these first four lines of poetry?
(A) AABA
(C) ABAB
(E) ABAA
(B) BAAB
(D) ABBA
(F) None of the above
7. What is the tone of this poem? Explain how you know the speaker’s tone.
8. Who is the speaker of the poem?
9. What do we know about the writer John Donne that will help us to better understand this poem?
Answers:
1. E
2. D
3. C
4.D
5. D
6. D
7. Answers may vary.
Example: “The tone is defiant and triumphant. The speaker tells Death—an idea that is scary to many people—that It is not
scary, even when many others have called it “mighty and dreadful.” He defies Death by saying that even when He thinks He
kills people, he actually doesn’t, and even cannot kill the speaker.”
8. Answers may vary.
Example: “The speaker is a person who is not afraid of death or of dying, and thinks that we have no reason to fear Death.”
9. Answers may vary.
Example: “We know that John Donne was a Christian writer and believed in heaven, so it makes sense that he would not think
Death is scary because he thinks that there will be life in heaven with God after Death. He believes that Death is not “the end,”
and that there is someone greater than Death—God.”
V. Poetry Analysis (20 points)
In this section, you will have a new poem to analyze. You should be able to answer all the above questions (from section IV)
about this new poem. It will not be a very complicated poem, but make sure you understand the literary concepts we learned in
class: the figures of speech, the different kinds of meter and rhyme, etc.
Example questions:
Directions: Answer questions 1-6 about the following poem, using the line numbers as references.
Vocabulary:
stubble: small, dry grasses; smothered: covered; absent-spirited: not having a spirit; ere: before; benighted: covered with the
night; unawares: without me knowing)
Desert Places by Robert Frost
1 Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
5 The woods around it have it--it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
9 And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less-A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
13 They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars--on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Directions: Choose the best answer from the following choices about the poem above.
1.
In line 1 of “Desert Places,” which of the following poetic devices do we see an example of?
(A) personification
(C) simile
(E) All of the above
(B) alliteration
(D) cacophony
(F) None of the above
2.
What is the rhyme scheme of “Desert Places”?
(A) AABABBCBCCDCDDED
(C) AAAABBBBCCCCDDDD
(B) AABACCDCEEBEFFGF
(D) ABABCDCDEFEFGHGH
(E) ABCDABCDABCDABCD
(F) None of the above
3.
Look at this line to determine the poem’s meter: “All animals are smothered in their lairs.”
(A) trochaic pentameter
(C) dactylic hexameter
(E) free verse
(B) iambic tetrameter
(D) iambic trimester
(F) None of the above
4.
What figure of speech do we see in lines 9-10?
(A) oxymoron
(C) personification
(B) metaphor
(D) hyperbole
(E) All of the above
(F) None of the above
Directions: Answer the following questions about “Desert Places” as clearly and thoroughly as you can.
5. What do you think “desert places” in line 16 symbolizes?
6. How would you describe the speaker’s tone? Discuss why talking about such things as diction and choice of details.
7. What do you think is the poem’s theme?
Answers:
1. B
2. B
3. F
4. C
5. Answers may vary.
Example: “ ‘Desert places’ symbolizes the frightening parts of ourselves deep inside us that make us feel lonely and empty”
6. Answers may vary.
Example: “The speaker’s tone is melancholy, and somewhat hopeless. He repeats the word “lonely” and “loneliness” many
times, also phrases like “smothered,” “absent-spirited,” “blanker,” “no expression.” The author talks about such details as nature:
snow, weeds, woods, animals’ lairs, and stars, all of which give the poem a lonely, melancholy feeling.
7. Answers may vary.
Example: “The most frightening thing we will ever have to face lies within us.”