The Lady of Shalott
Wherever possible, use quotes from
the poem to answer the questions.
Part I
1. Choose six words from Part I
which help describe the setting.
2. How do we know that nobody
has ever seen the person in the
tower?
3. How do the people of Camelot
refer to the person in the tower?
How do they know she is there?
Part II
4. Why does the Lady of Shalott
never look out of the window?
5. What does she see in the mirror?
6. What does she spend her time
doing?
7. How does the poet show that the
Lady is not very happy at the end
of this section?
Part III
8. List several sensory details used
to describe Lancelot.
9. What does the Lady do?
10. Explain what happens next and
why.
Part IV
11. What does the Lady do in the first
stanza of Part IV?
12. At what time of day does she
reach Camelot?
13. How does she die?
14. How is Sir Lancelot’s reaction to
her different than that of others?
“Journey of the Magi”
T.S. Eliot
A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a long journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times when we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.
Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities dirty and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wineskins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.
All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another _________.
Journey of the Magi questions
Stanza 1
1. What does the word Magi mean, and
what does the title suggest the poem will
be about?
2. Who is the speaker/narrator in the poem?
3. What effect does the opening line of the
poem have on the tone of the speaker?
4. “For a journey, and such a long journey” –
Why do you think Eliot has employed
repetition at this point in the poem?
5. From lines 9-10, what kind of life have the
Magi left behind? How does Eliot help the
reader understand this?
6. What does Eliot’s use of a list suggest
about the speaker’s attitude/behavior at
this point in the poem?
7. Why does the last line of the stanza come
as a surprise?
Stanza 2
8. “Then at dawn” – In what way might
“dawn” be symbolic in relation to this
poem?
9. In what way might the “three trees on the
low sky be symbolic”?
10. Eliot uses foreshadowing when he
describes the “six hands at an open door
dicing for pieces of silver.” What event is
he foreshadowing?
11. “Finding the place; it was (you may say)
satisfactory.” What “place” have the Magi
found and why is the use of the word
“satisfactory” surprising to the reader?
Stanza 3
12. How does Eliot convey the Magus’
eagerness for his words to be recorded
and why do you think he is so keen for his
story to be “set down”?
13. The Magus asks whether “we were led all
that way for Birth or Death.” What do you
think this reveals about his feelings
towards this experience?
14. Why do you think the birth was “hard and
bitter agony” for the Magus and “like
Death,/our death”?
15. The Magus reveals that “We returned to
our places, these Kingdoms.” Why is the
word choice of “these” significant?
16. Why do you think the Magus is “no longer
at ease here, in the old dispensation”?
17. What do you think he means by the final
line, and what do you think this line
reveals about his state of mind and
feelings by the end of the poem?
Porphyria’s Lover
The Second Coming
William Butler Yeats
Robert Browning
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
What do you think is the most disturbing passage in the
poem? Why?
What moods does the speaker experience?
What reasons does he give for his actions?
Why do you think the speaker asserts that Porphyria
“felt no pain”?
Browning first published this poem, along with another,
under the general title Madhouse Cells. Before you
knew this, where did you think the poem took place?
Consider the last line of the poem. Do you think this
indicates surprise or satisfaction?
Crossing the Bar
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Questions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
This poem is an extended metaphor. For what?
What is “the bar,” literally?
What does it represent, metaphorically?
In stanza two, the speaker hopes for a gentle tide. Why?
Notice the progression from sunset, to twilight, to dark. What do you think this
represents?
6. How is this poem about both a departure and a homecoming?
7. Who is the Pilot?
8. Comment on the poem’s diction. What do you notice about the words the poet
has chosen to use?
9. What do you notice about the meter of this poem? Why might the poet have
made this choice?
10. Characterize the speaker’s attitude. Is he accepting? Afraid? Both?
1.
The image of the falcon and the falconer begins
the poem. What happens over time, as the bird
gets further away from the falconer?
2. When the center cannot hold, what happens?
3. What happens to the “ceremony of innocence”?
4. What is happening to the world?
5. What happens to the "best"?
6. What happens to the "worst"?
7. What is "The Second Coming"?
8. What is supposed to happen there?
9. What image does Yeats see out in the desert,
and why does it “trouble” his sight?
10. Why is it having a nightmare, and why is a
cradle the cause of it?
11. Ultimately, what questions is Yeats asking?