Question

5. Which of these excerpts is most clearly an example of apostrophe? (1 point)

"Bird thou never wert,/That from Heaven or near it…"
"Higher still and higher/From the earth thou springest…"
"Like a Poet hidden/In the light of thought…"
"The blue Mediterranean, where he lay…"

Answer 1

The correct answer is B: "Higher still and higher/From the earth thou springest..."

Step-by-step explanation:

Apostrophe is a figure of speech that has the purpose, and intention, of working almost as an exclamation, and it is used as a literary technique in plays, and most commonly in poetry, as a means to indicate that the speaker has broken away from the main audience and now directs his thoughts and words towards an abstract, or absent individual, or object, who cannot respond, and is only almost idealized by the speaker. In this case, the second option allows the reader to see that the speaker has almost lost himself and seems as if he were talking to a third party, a ghost, or someone imaginary, most likely what he imagines will spring from the earth. This is why the answer is the second one.

Answer 2

"Higher still and higher/From the earth thou springest…" is an example of the figure of speech called apostrophe. In this figure of speech, the person is speaking to someone who is not present and think as if it is present. It uses exclamations or word such as "oh!" to indicating that it is calling or speaking to someone.