IGCSE World Literature The Old Familar Faces by Charles Lamb

Which sentence best summarises the poem 'The Old Familiar Faces'?

• The narrator shares his happy memories of friends and family

• The narrator remembers friends and lovers from the past with a mixture of nostalgia, regret and pain

• The narrator is glad to have forgotten people from the past and to have moved onto his new life with new friends

• The narrator mourns the loss of his lovers and family

The poem is written in stanzas of three lines. These are called

• trilines

• couples

• tercets

• quatrains

Each of the early tercets is about a different type of friendship. In which order do they come?

• family; lovers; school friends;

• best friend; family; school friends; first love

• first love; wife; colleagues; work acquaintances

• Childhood friends; young adult friends; first love; best friend;

How might you describe the structure of the poem?

• A tight ABA rhyme scheme

• A Shakespearean sonnet

• No rhyme scheme but using repetition and rhythm

• A sestet

The haunting repetition of the phrase “the old familiar faces” can be described as a

• rephrase

• refrain

• repeat

• regurgitate

What form of verb tense is used in the lines ""I have been laughing, I have been carousing ... " to suggest how recently these events feel to the narrator?

• past perfect

• present perfect

• present continuous

• future perfect

In what way is the fifth stanza different to those that come before it?

• It does not mention a specific friend or group of friends who are missed

• It does not start with the personal pronoun I

• Instead of mourning the loss of the old familiar faces, the narrator goes looking for them

• All of the above

Which of the following words are not repeated twice in the poem? These repetitions create a melancholic, echo-like sound to the poem reflecting the tone of loss and regret.

• all

• late

• departed

• left

What image is compared to romantic rejection and loss of a lover in the third stanza?

• Drinking late at night

• Pacing around childhood haunts

• Walking across a desert

• The closing of a door

In stanza five, what comparison does the narrator use to make to his present existence seem empty and forlorn?

• A haunted house

• A desert

• A ghost train

• A traverse