Questions of Travel (Elizabeth Bishop)

During her freshman year at which institution did an English professor write that Elizabeth Bishop was “evidently doomed to be a poet”?

Vassar College

The English professor’s wry comment regarding Bishop being “doomed to be a poet” was written on which of the following?

a midterm exam

What specific student behavior prompted Bishop’s professor to make the prophetic comment about her being "doomed to be a poet"?

her inquisitive behavior

In 1934, Elizabeth Bishop served as the editor-in-chief of which Vassar publication?

The Vassarion

In what year was Elizabeth Bishop born?

1911

Which tragic event occurred when Elizabeth Bishop was only eight months old?

her father died

Bishop’s mother was permanently institutionalized due to a series of severe mental health crises when Bishop was of what age?

5 years old

During her formative years, Bishop was shuttled between family members living in which two geographic locations?

Massachusetts and Nova Scotia

Which of Bishop’s works is explicitly cited in the text as demonstrating how her early experiences of being uprooted influenced her lifelong perspective on "home"?

“In The Village”

According to the text, Bishop’s early experiences of being uprooted left her with a lifelong attitude toward a secure place called "home" characterized by

A simultaneous suspicion of, and desire for, such a place

Which country did Bishop live in for many years, inspiring the poems in her 1965 collection Questions of Travel?

Brazil

Bishop's poetry collection North & South was originally published in 1946 and reissued in which year?

1955

Which geographic locations are explicitly identified in the text as subjects of poems in Bishop's collection North & South? (Bishop’s Biography and Background)

Florida and France

In which of Bishop’s collections, published in 1976, do poems about Nova Scotia, London, and Massachusetts appear?

Geography III

Elizabeth Bishop taught new generations of poets at which two prestigious universities?

Cambridge and Harvard

Which major American literary award is explicitly mentioned in the text as being won by Elizabeth Bishop? (Biography and Background)

Pulitzer Prize

Regardless of their subject, Bishop’s poems consistently display a remarkable capacity for observing?

common everyday items

According to scholar Thomas Travisano, Bishop's capacity for observation is often filtered through what specific tone?

A dry and distinctly wicked sense of humor

At the beginning of the poem, the speaker observes streams and clouds "travelling, travelling," which makes the mountains look like

the hulls of capsized ships

Which specific visual detail does the speaker use to describe the waterfalls "under our very eyes" before they have fully formed?

Mile-long, shiny tearstains

What does the speaker characterize as "childishness" in the second stanza?

Determining to rush and see the sun the other way around

When describing the trees along the road, the speaker notes that they are gesturing like

noble pantomimists robed in pink

Where does the "fat brown bird" sing in the poem?

above the broken gasoline pump

in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:

How many silver crosses are on the bamboo church described by the speaker?

5

The speaker compares the "unrelenting oratory" of the rain to

politicians’ speeches

What does the traveller immediately do when the "sudden golden silence" arrives after the rain?

Takes a notebook and writes

Which philosopher does the traveler explicitly mention in the notebook entry at the end of the poem?

Pascal

The speaker uses the phrase "weak calligraphy" to metaphorically describe the structural design of

songbirds’ cages

What paradox does the traveler write about in the final stanza regarding "imagined places"?

The idea that we need a lack of imagination to visit them rather than stay home

The final question of the poem, "Should we have stayed at home, / wherever that may be?", suggests that "home" is ultimately

an elusive, uncertain concept for the modern traveler

The "sad, two-noted, wooden tune" described in the poem is produced by

disparate wooden clogs clacking on a grease-stained floor

How does the speaker describe the old stonework encountered while traveling?

inexplicable and impenetrable

In the line "the choice is never wide and never free", the traveler is reflecting on the constraints of choosing

continent, city, country, and society

Elizabeth Bishop's collection Questions of Travel was published in which year?

1965

The poems in Questions of Travel were primarily inspired by the years Bishop spent living in which country?

Brazil

With whom did Elizabeth Bishop live during her highly creative period abroad from 1951 to approximately 1966?

Lota de Macedo Soares

According to the analysis, the initial assessment of the traveler's journey in the first stanza is dominated by

negative language focused on excessive sensations

Which of the following sets of words from the poem's opening does the analyzer cite as evidence of the journey's "excessive sensations"?

"too many," "too rapidly," "crowded," "pressure"

The analyzer suggests that the traveler’s hesitation and uncertainty about coming to this new place is driven by overwhelming sensations and

potential ethical problems with traveling

In the analysis of the stanza beginning "Is it right to be watching strangers in a play...", traveling is critically conceptualized as potentially being

a way of fulfilling a fantasy or forcing oneself where one doesn't belong

According to the analysis, what brings "major significance" to Bishop's poetry, reversing the speaker's initial negative judgments?

The easily missed beauties of small details

What concept from Bishop's poem "Arrival at Santos" does the analyzer introduce to describe the unrealistic expectations travelers often possess?

“immodest demands for a different world"

The analysis argues that traveling rarely delivers exactly what we want, especially if we are too focused on

seeking out things we think are already there

The analyzer states that Bishop’s poem pushes us to recognize that our worries about our destinations are actually

anxieties about where we have come from

In the poem's final stanzas, the traveler's thoughts are presented as

hypothetical thoughts reflecting on the journey