Campbell High School

Campbell High School

World Literature, Fall 2011

FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

Short answer: Respond appropriately with a very brief (sentence or less) answer to the following questions.

1. Read the line below that is from a selected Tanka, and choose the sense to which the imagery mainly appeals.

On the cypress mountain, / Autumn evening." (from Tanka by Preist Jakuren)

Read this poem by the Chinese poet, Li Po and answer the two questions which follow:

Here! is this you on top of Fan-ko Mountain,

Wearing a huge hat in the noonday sun?

How thin, how wretchedly thin, you have grown!

You must have been suffering from poetry again.

2. What is the speaker's tone in lines 3 and 4?

3. The theme of the above poem may be exemplified by the line, "You must be suffering from poetry again." Provide a statement that best exemplifies this message.

Read the excerpt below; then provide an answer to the question which follows.

The rabbit from the Panchatantra “. . . reflected: ‘How is it possible to kill this lion—curse him! Yet after all… I can kill even a lion.’”

4. In the fable from which this passage is taken, the rabbit is a character that uses wit and trickery to overcome the greater strength of the lion. This type of character occurs in literature so often that scholars have given the type a name. What is that name?

Read the following passage and answer the question which follows:

“Very true”, said the rabbit. “But after all it was a mighty lion that I saw. So the master should not set out without realizing the enemy’s capacity.” Suddenly Numbskull, the lion responded, “What business is it of yours? Show him to me, even in his fortress.”

5. In which type of literature is a reader most likely to find dialogue like that exchanged between these two animals?

6. Paraphrase this aphorism from Tao Te Ching.

To retire when the task is accomplished / Is the way of heaven.

Identify the literary device(s) used in the passage below:

7. He who rules by moral force is like the pole-star, which remains in its place while all the lesser stars do homage to it.

8. Which literary term refers to the ways an author reveals important aspects about the people in a story?

Read the following excerpt from the Mahabharata, an Indian epic about the deeds and adventures of an India hero. Answer the three questions that follow.

The hawk suddenly said, “All the world speaks of you as one who has the finest discrimination between right and wrong. And so you have a serious responsibility at this moment. You must not do anything that goes contrary to your reputation. Remember, I am in the agonies of hunger, and you refuse me my legitimate diet. By your act you cause me suffering, you injure me every second that you keep your hold on that parcel of meat. You have attained immeasurable spiritual merit by your deeds of perfection; now this single selfish act of yours will drain away all your merit and you will probably go to hell.”

9. In this passage, the author uses a literary device known as dialogue to provide insight into the king’s character. Based on the hawk’s conversation with the king, the reader learns that the king is:

10. What do the hawk’s words, “You have attained immeasurable spiritual merit by your deeds of perfection,” infer about Indian belief?

11. Which emotions does the hawk try to evoke in the king?

12. A fable is a single tale that teaches a lesson about human conduct using animals as characters. Provide an example of a theme from a fable.

13. Read the following statements. These short statements that express general truth or principles are called ______.

“The Master said, a gentleman can see a question from all sides without bias. The small man is biased and can see a question only from one side.” (Confucius)

“Rather than fill it to the brim by keeping it upright, better to have stopped in time; Hammer it to a point, and the sharpness cannot be preserved for ever;” (Tao Te Ching)

14. A play or a piece of literature that shows the downfall of a noble character is called a

15. In Sophocles' play, Oedipus the King, the title character, Oedipus, gets caught up in a sequence of events that lead inevitably to disaster. In literature, a character like Oedipus who seems to be destined for failure is called a(n)

16. The destruction of Oedipus, like the destruction of many traditional characters in literature who are heroic, is caused by a mistake or unwise decision or a weakness that students call a(n)

17. In Oedipus the King, Part II, lines 1465 to 1466, Oedipus regrets that his life was saved when he was a baby. He expresses that regret by saying:

"Curse on the man who took

The cruel bonds from my legs, as I lay in the field."

What example of figurative language is used in those lines?

18. In Oedipus the King, Part II, line 1498, Oedipus refers to himself as a “miserable carcass.” This expression is an example of how a writer's ______can reveal the character's feelings.

19. In Part II of Oedipus the King, a messenger tells Jocasta that Oedipus’ father, believed to be Polybus, is dead, information which seems to relieve some of the anxiety of Jocasta and Oedipus. The audience knows, however, that Oedipus’ father is actually Laius, whom Oedipus has killed. This situation in which the audience knows what the character does not is an example of

20. An actor is alone on stage and reveals his private thoughts and feelings. He appears to address the audience directly, but it is understood by the audience that they are hearing him “think out loud.” What dramatic device is being used in this situation?

21. Read this passage from Oedipus the King Part II, and respond to the item that follows.

He struck his eyes again and yet again

With the brooches. And the bleeding eyeballs gushed

And stained his beard—no sluggish oozing drops

But a black rain and bloody hail poured down.

Name the literary device that is employed in the quotation above.

22. While on stage with other characters, Oedipus delivers a brief remark to express his private thoughts. Oedipus’s remarks are directed to the audience and it is presumed to be unheard by the other characters. What literary device is being utilized by the author?

23. The blind prophet Teiresias does not want to reveal what he knows—that Oedipus is the cause of the suffering in Thebes—because he feels it will cause them both pain and the truth will be revealed in any case. What type of conflict is Teiresias experiencing?

24. The invisible jinnee in “The Fisherman and the Jinnee” is an example of which characteristic of a folk tale?

Read the following passages and respond to the questions that follow.

Tell me, O muse, of Odysseus, that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover, he suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might, he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Helios, so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, . . . O daughter of Zeus . . .

from the Odyssey by Homer

25. Which aspects of the archetypal hero’s quests is exemplified in this passage?

26. What cultural contexts of ancient Greece are evident in the passage?

Read this excerpt and respond to the two items that follow.

Before this Earth existed, there was only water. It stretched as far as one could see, and in that water there were birds and animals swimming around. Far above, in the clouds, there was a Skyland. In that Skyland there was a great and beautiful tree. It had four white roots, which stretched to each of thesacred directions, and from its branches all kinds of fruits and flowers grew.

There was an ancient chief in the Skyland. His young wife was expecting a child, and one night she dreamed that she saw the Great Tree uprooted. The next day she told her husband the story. He nodded as she finished telling her dream. “My wife,” he said, “I am sad that you had this dream. It is clearly a dream of great power and, as is our way, when one has such a powerful dream we must do all we can to make it true. The Great Tree must be uprooted.”

from “The Earth on Turtle’s Back” retold by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac

27. Which aspect of an archetypal setting is evident in this passage?

28. A literary element that allows the author to begin a story in the middle of the plot is

29. A character’s difficult journey or mission is known as a

30. A long narrative poem that focuses on the deeds of a hero is a(n)

31. A plot or symbol that recurs in the literature of many cultures is a(n)

32. Which of the following is true?

Medieval Romance means romantic as in the sense of a love story.

Medieval Romance tells of strange, sometimes supernatural, events in exotic settings.

The standard plot of a Medieval Romance stresses the value of courage, loyalty, honor and mercy.

Romances from the Middle Ages are based upon legends, traditional stories about the past based on historical fact.

Poetry

Read William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 116," below, and respond to the items that follow.

Sonnet 116

William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

5 O, no! It is an ever-fix`ed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to very wandering bark, (bark a ship)

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

10 Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Lover alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error, and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

33. How many lines of poetry are in almost every sonnet?

34. In "Sonnet 116" Shakespeare compares love to the "star" that "is an ever-fix`ed mark" that guides ships and lovers. This kind of comparison in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else is known as

35. In the third quatrain, lines 9-12, love is written of as if it is human. Love is not a "fool," and it has "rosy lips and cheeks." It does not change over time, but stays strong even to "the edge of doom," the Day of Judgment. When nonhuman subjects are given human characteristics, as in quatrain three, scholars call it

36. Reread lines 1 and 2. Note, especially, the repetition of the sound of the letter m. Poets call this repetition of consonant sounds

Read William Blake's "A Poison Tree," below, and respond to the items that follow.

A Poison Tree

William Blake

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end. (wrath furious, often vindictive, anger)

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

5 And I watered it in fears

Night and morning with my tears,

And I sunned it with smiles

And with soft deceitful wiles. (deceitful wiles deceptive tricks)

And it grew both day and night,

10 Til it bore an apple bright,

And my foe beheld it shine,

And he knew that it was mine—

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

15 In the morning, glad, I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

37. Blake's "A Poison Tree" sounds like a nursery rhyme in its first couplet. It seems to be a child's simple lesson. Tell your friend that you're angry, and the anger goes away. Then, with the second couplet, there is a shift, a change, in tone and meaning. Describe that "shift."

38. In the first couplet, how does Blake use rhyme to contribute to meaning?

39. When Blake has the speaker say on line 4, "I told it not, my wrath did grow," he is indicating that some future action may result. Students call this literary prediction of some future action within a literary work

40. In the second stanza of "The Poison Tree," (lines 5-8) the speaker waters his anger and wrath with metaphorical tears and suns it with false smiles. In this metaphor, Blake compares anger and wrath to

41. In lines nine through twelve, stanza three, Blake's metaphor from the question above bears fruit, an apple. The fruit is shiny, attractive to the speaker’s foe, especially since the foe “knew it was mine—.” That is, the foe knew that the apple belonged to the speaker. Here, readers learn

42. Structurally, Blake’s poem is organized

43. Which characteristics of modern drama are found in A Doll House?

44. In the opening scene of Act I from A Doll House, what does Torvald’s reaction to Nora’s shopping show about his character?

45. In Act I of A Doll House, why has Mrs. Linde come to visit her old friend Nora?

46. Many falsehoods and deceptions pervade in A Doll’s House. Mark whether the following lines spoken by Nora in Act I of A Doll House are true statements or false?

[to Helmer] “You know I could never think of going against you.”

[to Rank] “Yes, but these are some [macaroons] that Kristine gave me.”

[to Mrs. Linde] “My husband’s been made manager in the bank, just think!”

[to Mrs. Linde] “Well, as it was, we got [the money] from Papa.”

47. What is Mrs. Linde’s view of Nora’s character in Act I of A Doll House?

48. What attitude is suggested by the following stage directions from A Doll House, Act I?