The Pardoner Introduction

The tone of “The Pardoner’s Prologue” could best be described as .

• grave

• satirical

• melodramatic

• jubilant

Which of these lines best explains the central irony in “The Pardoner’s Prologue”?

• “By this fraud have I won me, year by year, / A hundred marks, since I’ve been pardoner.”

• “When they are dead, for all I think thereon / Their souls may well black-berrying have gone!”

• “For, when I dare not otherwise debate, / Then do I sharpen well my tongue and sting / The man in sermons, and upon him fling / My lying defamations”

• “Thus can I preach against that self-same vice / Which I indulge, and that is avarice.”

Which of these sentences best summarizes the following passage (stanza 3)?

“ ‘Here is a mitten, too, that you may see. Who puts his hand therein, I say again, He shall have increased harvest of his grain, After he’s sown, be it of wheat or oats, Just so he offers pence or offers groats.

• The Pardoner has a magic glove that he claims will bring bountiful grain crops to the person who puts it on, but only if that person pays the Pardoner first.

• This mitten will help the wearer be better at math, so he has a better idea how much grain to plant and how to increase the amount of money he gets when he sells it.

• The Pardoner is selling gardening gloves.

• The Pardoner claims that if a person wears the glove and plants coins, or “pence,” in the ground with his wheat and oat seeds, his crops will grow very successfully.

What do these lines from stanza 5 reveal about the Pardoner?

I stand up like a scholar in a pulpit, And when the ignorant people all do sit, I preach, as you have heard me say before, And tell a hundred false japes, less or more.

• The Pardoner is an unhappy person.

• The Pardoner dislikes lying to his congregants.

• The Pardoner is condescending.

• The Pardoner thinks it’s futile to try to preach to people who are too simple to understand his sermons.

Which of these inferences about the Pardoner is best supported by stanzas 1-2?

• The Pardoner is a man of deep religious faith who strongly believes in doing God’s work.

• The Pardoner wants to look and sound official so that no one will question his motives and impede his goals.

• The Pardoner varies the theme of his sermons, but always speaks in a clear voice.

• The Pardoner knows the Pope, as well as other important religious figures, such as cardinals and bishops.

Which of these lines from the text best support the correct answer to the previous question?

• “Our liege-lord’s seal on my patent perfect, / I show that first, my safety to protect,”

• “First I announce the place whence I have come, / And then I show my pardons, all and some.”

• “Then show I forth my hollow crystal-stones, / Which are crammed full of rags, aye, and of bones;”

• “Thus can I preach against that self-same vice / Which I indulge, and that is avarice.”

Which of these sentences best explains the Pardoner’s motive for using the sin of avarice as the theme of all of his sermons?

• The Pardoner preaches against the sin of avarice because he has a strong personal belief that greed is the root of all evil.

• The Pardoner preaches about avarice because he cares about his congregants’ eternal salvation and wants to prevent them from living a life of sin.

• The Pardoner preaches about the sin of avarice because it causes people to give him money to pardon their sin.

• The Pardoner preaches about avarice because he thinks it is the most common of all sins.

Which of these lines from the text best supports the correct answer to the previous question?

• “Thus can I preach against that self-same vice / Which I indulge, and that is avarice.”

• “I preach no sermon, save for covetousness; / This should suffice of that, though, as I guess.

• “But though myself be guilty of that sin, / Yet can I cause these other folk to win / From avarice and really to repent. / But that is not my principal intent.”

• “Is all my preaching, thus to make them free / With offered pence, the which pence come to me.”

Which of the following occurred 1st?

• The Pardoner proclaims that his scheme has made him a hundred marks a year.

• The Pardoner explains how he brings “relics” with supposed miraculous properties to his sermons and how people offer to pay him for their use.

• The Pardoner says he always preaches on the same theme: Radix malorum est cupiditas.

• The Pardoner admits that he does not care at all about punishing his congregants’ sins or about the salvation of their souls.

Which of the following occurred 2nd?

• The Pardoner explains how he brings “relics” with supposed miraculous properties to his sermons and how people offer to pay him for their use.

• The Pardoner proclaims that his scheme has made him a hundred marks a year.

• The Pardoner admits that he does not care at all about punishing his congregants’ sins or about the salvation of their souls..

• The Pardoner says he always preaches on the same theme: Radix malorum est cupiditas.