Mock Exam: Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Literature November 2020

LAST NAME: FIRST NAME: _________________________

1. Multiple-choice questions (10 min.; 10%; 0,5% each correct answer). Please answer by
writing the appropriate letter next to the question number in the grid:
1) What does the Old English term “kenning” mean?
a. A man’s price.
b. The fact of reinforcing the idea of the tribe.
c. A compound expression with metaphorical meaning.
d. The constant repetition of an idea within the text.

2) The predominant prosodic system in Old English poetry is based on

a. free disposition of accents within each hemistich
b. accentual meter and alliteration of the stressed syllables
c. syllabic meter and alliteration in each hemistich
d. counting accents and syllables

3) The text of Beowulf is preserved in

a. four manuscripts: Vercelli, Junius (or Caedmon), Exeter book, Cotton Vitellius
b. a 12th-century manuscript in the British Library
c. the Cotton Vitellius or Nowell manuscript dated around 1000AD
d. the Vercelli manuscript from the late 10th century

4) Beowulf belonged to the tribe of?

a. The Danes
b. The Geats
c. The Swedes
d. The Franks

4) Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is

a. a lyric poem
b. a chivalric allegory
c. an alliterative courtly romance
d. a dream-vision poem

6) In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hero is being measured against
a. the medieval notion of social immobility
b. caricatures of aristocratic corruption
c. the examples in English-language saints’ lives
d. a moral and Christian ideal of chivalry

7) Which other poems are part of the Cotton Nero manuscript apart from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight?
a. Pearl, Purity and Prosperity
b. Purity, Prosperity and Patience
c. Pearl, Purity and Patience
d. Patience, Pearl and Prophets.

8) Regarding the three estates satire, religious characters in The Canterbury Tales are portrayed as:
a. Hard-working and honest b. corrupt and hypocritical
c. concerned about poor people d. critical with nobility

9) Which are the three estates satirized by Chaucer in his Prologue to The Canterbury Tales?
a. the Working Class, the Proletariat and the Middle Class
b. the Clergy, the Nobility and the Peasantry
c. the Bourgeoisie, the Proletariat and the Middle Class
d. the Clergy, the Nobility and the Aristocracy

10) What is a “Morality Play”?

a. A play which functions as a morality guide.
b. A play which shows the Christian values.
c. An allegorical dramatization of an intellectual debate.
d. All of them are right.
 Mock Exam: Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Literature November 2020

LAST NAME: FIRST NAME: _________________________

2. Identify, translate, and comment on the following fragment (20 min.; 20%):

1 Splendid that knight errant stood in a splay of green,

2 And green, too, was the mane of his mighty destrier;
3 Fair fanning tresses enveloped the fighting man’s shoulders,
4 And over his breast hung a beard as big as a bush;
5 The beard and the huge mane burgeoning forth from his head
6 Were clipped off clean in a straight line over his elbows,
7 And the upper half of each arm was hidden underneath
8 As if covered by a king’s chaperon, closed round the neck.
9 The mane of the marvelous horse was much the same,
10 Well crisped and combed and carefully pranked with knots,
11 Threads of gold interwoven with the glorious green,
12 Now a thread of hair, now another thread of gold;
13 The tail of the horse and the forelock were tricked the same way,
14 And both were bound up with a band of brilliant green
15 Adorned with glittering jewels the length of the dock,
16 Then caught up tight with a thong in a criss-cross knot
17 Where many a bell tinkled brightly, all burnished gold.
18 So monstrous a mount, so mighty a man in the saddle
19 Was never once encountered on all this earth
20 till then;
21 His eyes, like lightning, flashed,
22 And it seemed to many a man,
23 That any man who clashed
24 With him would not long stand
Mock Exam: Anglo-Saxon and Medieval November 2020

Last Name: ______________________________________ First Name: ___________________

Essay (40%). Explain the following question and provide different examples.

The role of women as (non)protagonists in Medieval literature in England.