In Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, what is the fate of those who fail to observe the sacred duty of blood vengeance?
A. banishment to Asia
B. everlasting shame
C. conversion to Christianity
D. mild melancholia
Christian writers like the Beowulf poet looked back on their pagan ancestors with:
A. nostalgia and ill-concealed envy
B. bewilderment and visceral loathing
C. admiration and elegiac sympathy
D. bigotry and shallow triumphalism
The use of “whale-road” for sea and “life-house” for body are examples of what literary technique?
A. symbolism
B. simile
C. metonymy
D. kenning
Which of the following statements is not an accurate description of Old English poetry?
A. Romantic love is a guiding principle of moral conduct.
B. Its formal and dignified use of speech was distant from everyday use of language
C. Irony is a mode of perception, as much as it was a figure of speech
D. Christian and pagan ideals are sometimes mixed
Which of the following best describes litote, a favorite rhetorical device in Old English poetry?
A. embellishment at the service of Christian doctrine
B. repetition of parallel syntactic structures
C. ironic understatement
D. stress on every third diphthong
How did Henry II, the first of England’s Plantagenet kings, acquire vast provinces in southern France?
A. the Battle of Hastings
B. Saint Patrick’s mission
C. the Fourth Lateran Council
D. the execution of William Sawtre
E. his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine
Which of the following languages did not coexist in Anglo-Norman England?
A. Latin
B. Dutch
C. French
D. Celtic
Which twelfth-century poet or poets were indebted to Breton storytellers for their narratives?
A. Geoffrey Chaucer
B. Marie de France
C. Chrétien de Troyes
D. a and c only
E. b and c only
To what did the word the roman, from which the genre of “romance” emerged, initially apply?
A. a work derived from a Latin text of the Roman Empire
B. a story about love and adventure
C. a Roman official
D. a work written in the French vernacular