Honors British Literature Final Exam Study Guide Fall 2014
I. Name that Period
1. Know events from each of the following periods: Anglo-Saxon/Medieval Periods, English
Renaissance, The Seventeen & Eighteenth Centuries, Romantic, Victorian, and Modern Period.
2. Define/Identify the Poetic Devices of the Anglo Saxon/Medieval periods (such as but not limited
to) kenning, etc.
3. Know and classify poetic forms of all the periods, such as but not limited to epic/elegiac forms.
4. Trace the development of the English language from Anglo-Saxon period to the Middle Ages.
5. Review Sir Gawain and the Green Knight plot along with literary devices.
6. Be able to identify characteristics of Medieval Poetry (see previous blogs for powerpoint).
7. Review characteristics of Renaissance poetry (sonnets/pastoral) (see previous blogs for
powerpoint). Know content of sonnets/pastorals covered in class.
8. Identify lines from Macbeth.
9. Know works and poetic devices of Donne, Jonson, Marvell, Herrick, Suckling, Lovelace, & Milton.
10. Know prose works of Pepys, Defoe, Johnson, & Bunyan
11. Know epic conventions, plot & character motivations in Paradise Lost.
12. Review Seventeenth-Eighteenth Century poetry. Know features of metaphysical poetry along
with all poetic devices of that period.
13. Know carpe diem theme
14. Know the themes of works from Nineteenth/Twentieth Centuries.
II. Works of Literature to Study from the Romantic/Victorian/Modern/Postmodern Periods. Access
the handout (see previous blogs) and review the following works.
Romantic Period: A, F, I, J, O,
Victorian Period: A,C, D, E, F, I
Modern Period: B, D, E
Postmodern Period: G, H
III.**Place special emphasis on Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn”, “When I Have Fears…” “Ode to a
Nightingale”, Yeats “Sailing to Byzantium & Second Coming”, and Woolf’s “Shakespeare’s Sister.”