First Final Quiz

[ernesto thaddeus m. solmerano]

Poetry Analysis Test

Read the poem very carefully and then answer the questions that follow.

Hawk Roosting
By Ted Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed,
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth’s face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot.

Or fly up, and resolve it all slowly –
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads –

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.


1. The speaker in the poem is:
a. the hawk
b. the poet
c. a tyrant
d. the Creator
e. an ornithologist
2. The poem is:
a. the dream of a nature lover
b. a paean of praise by a bird fancier
c. an assertion of the force of creation
d. an internal monologue
e. an animal fable
3. In the poem, the hawk is offered as:
a. a psychological portrait
b. a high point of evolution
c. a symbol
d. a unique creation of God
e. an illustration of the wonder of nature
4. All the following aid the hawk in it pursuit of game EXCEPT:
a. its hooked head
b. its pride
c. the high trees
d. the buoyancy of the air
e. the light of the sun
5. The line “No arguments asset y right” means all of the following EXCEPT:
a. My right to kill comes from my power.
b. My victims cannot question my right.
c. I don’t need arguments to justify my right to kill.
d. My right to kill is granted me by the Creator.
e. My right to kill is not based on any form of legality.
6. The language in the poem can be described as:
a. dramatic
b. economical
c. stilted
d. labored
e. awkward
7. All of the following are true of the hawk EXCEPT that it:
a. is pleased with itself
b. is unafflicted with doubts
c. expresses itself in an arrogant way
d. offers itself for inspection
e. is not troubled by fears or hesitations
8. The hawk believes itself to be all of the following EXCEPT the:
a. possessor of complete power
b. final perfect product of the evolutionary process
c. possessor of a strength equal to that of the tree on which it perches
d. center of a revolving world
e. lord over its earthly subjects
9. This poem is a:
a. symbolic comment on tyranny
b. portrait of motiveless cruelty
c. nature study
d. criticism of the Creator
e. painting in words of an invincible vertebrate
10. The use of the word “manners” in line 16 is:
a. humorous
b. ironic
c. allegoric
d. euphemistic
e. enigmatic
11. The poem deals with all of the following EXCEPT:
a. the refinements of civilized existence
b. satisfaction with an existing condition
c. the nature of autocratic power
d. an attack on the evil nature of man
e. a plea for the preservation of civilized human value
12. In this poem the hawk represents
a. a philosopher
b. an autocratic dictator
c. the beauty of the violent forces in nature
d. failure of the creative power of God
e. the king of birds
13. This poem is:
a. an ode
b. a lyric
c. a sonnet
d. a eulogy
e. a dramatic monologue
14. The word “sophistry” in line 15 is used in the sense of:
a. disguise
b. sophistication
c. defect
d. weakness
e. deception
15. In the hawk’s view his body was shaped by the Creator for all of the following purposes EXCEPT to:
a. affirm God’s creative power
b. subdue the animal world to his needs
c. destroy life
d. maintain his supremacy
e. be a model for other of God’s creatures
16. By extension, the hawk becomes a symbol for man because man is:
a. extending his technological powers
b. eliminating disease
c. throwing satellites into space
d. engendering destruction
e. restoring fertility to deserts
17. The mind of the hawk as revealed in this poem is:
a. unsophisticated
b. complex
c. sharp as a needle
d. confused
e. clouded by his sense of superiority
18. What takes place in the hawk’s mind is:
a. a delight in his surroundings
b. an awareness of limited powers
c. a challenge to the Creator
d. a rehearsal of a kill
e. a consciousness of human frailty
19. This poem is a/an:
a. ode
b. elegy
c. song
d. sonnet
e. simple lyric
20. This poem is significant as a literary work mainly because:
a. in recreating a human experience, it gives us aesthetic pleasure
b. it conveys a moral
c. it gives us information and knowledge
d. all the answers above are equally applicable
e. none of the answers above are correct