AP English 4

Ms. Footit / Mr. DeCoteau

AP Style Beowulf Study Guide / Practice Test

1. Part I: Similar to your Oedipus test, Part I will consist of 10 multiple choice
questions worth 5 points each. Question content will be drawn from:

1. The Epic Hero—qualities as applied to Beowulf (the epic and the character)
2. Anglo-Saxon literary devices—specifically, alliteration, the caesura (pause in the
middle of a line), kennings, litotes only if Ms. Footit reviewed them.
3. Basic plot and character questions—these may pertain to Beowulf’s composition
date, its characters, notably Beowulf, Wiglaf, and Hrothgar, and Beowulf’s fights
(Grendel, Grendel’s mother, and the dragon). Note: These are not on the sample test
from last year, though the other types of questions are.
An example question might be:

Example: Beowulf must battle Grendel with his bare hands because —
a. the Geats traditionally did battle with their bare hands
b. Grendel had magically made all weapons useless against him
c. Beowulf wishes to prove the superiority of the Geats over the Danes
d. Beowulf wishes to prove his bravery

4. New Historicism. The multiple choice question won’t be especially difficult but
will ask you to distinguish between different critical lenses via terms:

The tenth question below is an example:

Example: What question best shows what a New Historicist w might ask of Beowulf?

a. What internal motivation drives the central character?

b. What overlooked battle or war is being rewritten in fictional terms?
c. How do power structures inform the proletariat in the work?
d. How do women's rights affect the portrayal of the feminine in the work?

2. Essay: Analyze Beowulf through a New Historical critical lens, possibly touching on the passage
that follows as evidence. Form a thesis in which you assert a New Historical viewpoint about a
plot, theme, or character and trace that thesis through at least 3 body paragraphs. Use
appropriate New Historical terms / ideas. 4-6 paragraphs total. 40 minutes working time. 50
points total: accuracy, detail, organization, language / mechanics.

Note: I might seek to add another passage to this one. What New Historical ideas might
you consider?
Any understanding of the ―truth‖ is, at best, a matter of interpretation on the parts of
both the writer and the reader.

• This is most blatantly evident in the fact that the ―losers of history are hardly ever heard.
The culture that is dominated by another is often lost to history because it is the
powerful who have the resources to record history.
• Even in recent past events, who really knows both sides of the story? Who really knows
the whole of the Arab-Israeli story? Or the Iraqi story?
• New Historicists argue that these unknown histories are just as significant as the histories
of the culture of power and should be included in any world-view.
• Since these unrepresented or underrepresented histories often contradict “traditional
understandings,” there is no way to know the absolute historical truth.

If the following passage is reviewed, consider the above question in terms of how
Christian cultural views were victorious over, and even resulted in the overwriting of,
pagan viewpoints.

“A powerful monster, living down 86

In the darkness, growled in pain, impatient
As day after day the music rang
Loud in that hall, the harp's rejoicing
Call and the poet's clear songs, sung
of the ancient beginning of us all, recalling
The Almighty making the earth, shaping
these beautiful plains marked off by oceans,
then proudly setting the sun and moon
to glow across the land and light it;
the corners of the earth were made lovely with trees
and leaves, make quick with life, with each
of the nations who now move on its face. And then,
as now warriors sange of their pleasure;
So Hrothgar's men lived happy in his hall
till the monster stirred, that demon, that fiend,
Grendel, who haunted the moors, the wild
marshes, and made his home in a hell
not hell but earth. He was spawned in that slime
conceived by a pair of those monsters born
of Cain, murderous creatures banished
by God, punished forever for the crime
of Able's death. The Almighty drove
those demons out, and their exile was bitter,
shut away from men; they split
into a thousand forms of evil—spirts
and fiends, goblins, monsters, giants,
a brood forever opposing the Lord's
will, and again and again defeated.”
So how might you structure this? Think of three areas of Beowulf that show a potential
conflict of values.

One area might be characterization—as follows:

Example) The portrayal of Hrothgrar—pagan or Christian ideal king?

The portrayal of Grendel—pagan beast or Christian demon?
The portrayal of Beowulf—Christian or pagan hero?
The portrayal of Grendel’s mother—demonization of the female?

Another area might be plot points—perhaps choosing one of the following:

Example) The portrayal of The Geats “saving” the Danes from Grendel—i.e. suggests Geat
dominance
The portrayal of Beowulf becoming king of the Geats—suggests cultural values of
the times
The portrayal of the dragon—suggests mythic values that defined the culture of the
time

In fact, a topic might be as simple as analyzing how Christianity was supplanting pagan
religion by analyzing three different characters or events in the book.

(See the next page)

Directions: In the space below, form a thesis statement noting what two or three areas
you’ll use to analyze Beowulf from a New Historicist lens. Then search through the book
for evidence for your three major points.

Thesis Statement:

Point 1:

Evidence:

Point 2:

Evidence:

Point 3:

Evidence
Name: _________________________________

AP Style Beowulf Sample Test

Multiple Choice
Circle the letter of the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question. 5 points each.

1. Which of the following quotations from Beowulf does not contain alliteration?
a. “The hoard-guard recognized / a human voice . . .”
b. “It was no easy thing / to have to give ground like that and go. . . .”
c. “Then he addressed each dear companion. . . .”
d. “‘I remember that time when mead was flowing . . .’”

2. The archetypal epic hero stands in relation to his or her community as the hero —
a. who, as a supreme individual, is indifferent to the fate of others
b. who saves others with minimal risk to himself
c. who gives his or her own life to protect those less worthy
d. whose individual quest has nothing to do with the community

3. If you wanted to support the idea that Beowulf is an epic hero, you might best note that he —
a. displays intense pride in his country
b. becomes more humble over time
c. loves nature and abhors civilization
d. embodies the ideal of Anglo-Saxon society

4. Which of the following quotations from Beowulf contains a kenning?

a. “And all at once the greedy she-wolf . . .”
b. “At last he saw the mud of the bottom.”
c. “He was hunting another / Dead monster . . .”
d. “Grendel’s mother / Is hidden in her terrible home . . .”

5 How does Beowulf exemplify the epic hero in the passage that follows?

“Yet I survived the sea, smashed the monsters' hot jaws, swam home from my journey.
The swift-flowing waters swept me along and I landed on Finnish soil. I've no tales of you,
Unferth, telling of such clashing terror, such conetest in the night!
Brecca's batles were never so bold;
neither he nor you can match me...”

a. he shows subservience to his king, representing a societal ideal;

b. he shows himself to be of noble birth;
c. he brags and boats to underscore his superhuman abilities
d. he insults his opponent using litotes to underscore his purpose.

6. Which Old English figurative language device appears in the passage that follows?

“To Grendel's lair Beowulf came;

it was by no means small;
filled with darkness from his night's slaughter;
the blood of men surrounding him.
 a. metaphor
b. epic simile
c. litote
d. kenning

7. Identify the caesuras in the lines that follow:

“As dark as the air, as black as the rain

That the heavens weep. Our only help...”

a. The words “Rain” and “help”

b. Between “air” and “as” and “weep” and “Our
c. Between “black” and “as” and “weep” and “Our”
d. It's impossible to determine in modern English.

. 8. Which of the following statements about Wiglaf is true?

a. He believes in and speaks about the inner goodness of all people.
b. His inexperience makes him unworthy to succeed to the throne.
c. He makes an eloquent speech about the virtues of loyalty and bravery.
d. He tells Beowulf that the other warriors will desert Beowulf when he needs them most.

9. What is not traditionally true of the epic poem genre, one of the oldest in literature?

a. It's in narrative form, telling a story

b. It often uses elevated language
c. It's traditionally long, over one-thousand lines
d. It's usually made up of several small poems

10. What question best shows what a New Historicist w might ask of Beowulf?

a. What internal motivation drives the central character?

b. What overlooked battle or war is being rewritten in fictional terms?
c. How do power structures inform the proletariat in the work?
d. How do women's rights affect the portrayal of the feminine in the work?

Note: The essay would appear here—it will be the exact same essay as in the prompt on the study guide. It’s
worth 50 points.