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EXAM #1邑rite a short paragraph for any eight of the following questions. Your answers may be either typed or written by hand, and you may use your book and/or your notes. Good luck.

1. In Bede and Caedmon痴 Hymn (23), what made Caedmon significant enough to be included? What is the significance of Caedmon's dream? What is the "gift" referred to on pages 24-5? How does Bede explain this 堵ift�?

2. Given that 典he Dream of the Rood� (26) is a 電ream vision,� what is the role of the poet in this poem? (Pay special attention to the last two paragraphs.) The Rood's words to the dreamer are enclosed within a narrative "frame" in which the dreamer addresses his audience directly. What is the effect of these two levels of address? Does it add to our understanding of the role of the poet?

3. Beowulf (29) has been called a Pagan story composed (or at least written down) by a Christian poet. What Christian and pre-Christian (Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, or epic-heroic) elements can you identify? To what extent are God and Fate the same thing in the poem? To what extent are they in conflict? What about the representation of evil? What is the significance of Grendel belonging to the "race of Cain"?

4. In The Canterbury Tales (213), the Wife of Bath contradicts many of the medieval anti-feminine customs and asserts her own assessment of the roles of women in society and in relationships. Margery Kempe likewise challenges many apects of male dominance in medieval society. Compare and contrast these two figures.

5. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (156), the hunting scenes of Bercilak parallel the tests given to Gawain during his stay at Hautdesert Castle. What are the subtle yet significant parallels between Bercilak's hunting expeditions and the three seductive encounters between Sir Gawain and the lady?

6. How is 鄭dam Lay Bound� on page 349 an example of the genre 鍍he fortunate fall�?

7. Most modern productions of The Wakefield Second Shepherd痴 Play (391) are theatrically effective due to the comic elements. However, some critics deem this play blasphemous due to the comic treatment given to religious subject matter. How do you read the play? Is it comedy, blasphemy, or what?

8. The play Everyman (445) demonstrates the ways in which a person who does have talents (Good Deeds that are trapped in the ground) wastes them, like the servant who buries his one talent in the ground and is cast into the dark, the "place of wailing and grinding of teeth." According to the play's allegory, what forces in everyday human life cause us to waste our talents?

9. In Spenser痴 鉄onnet #75� (867), how are love, poetry and religious belief closely associated?

10. In The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (991), does Mephastophilis tempt Faustus? Or does he damn himself?

11. Discuss the symbolic use of blindness in The Tragedy of King Lear (1106).