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26 pages 52 minutes read

Elizabeth Bishop

One Art

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1976

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Literary Device Questions

1. Of these, which quotation is an example of wordplay using a homonym?

A) “Then practice losing farther, losing faster[.]”

B) “I lost my mother’s watch.”

C) “I lost two cities, lovely ones.”

D) “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.”

2. Of these, which is an example of personification?

A) “[S]o many things seem filled with the intent

    to be lost that their loss is no disaster.”

B) “Then practice losing farther, losing faster;

   places, and names, and where it was you meant

   to travel.”

C) “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.”

D) “And vaster,

    some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.”

3. How does Bishop bend the rules of the villanelle form?

A) The final stanza has four lines instead of three.

B) The first line of the poem reappears at the end of the second stanza.

C) The poem does not begin with a heroic couplet.

D) The first and third lines repeat in the poem, but with variations.

4. Choose an example from the poem that demonstrates enjambment. (short answer)

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