12
QuizMultiple Choice

Make It New!: Early Modernism — Test

Question 12 • English III

Read the excerpt from Twelfth Night , by William Shakespeare. If music be the food of love, play on; Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. That strain again! it had a dying fall: O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound, That breathes upon a bank of violets, Stealing and giving odour! Now read the excerpt from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." For I have known them all already, known them all: Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. What does the phrase “dying fall” most likely mean in both excerpts?

Answer
A
The sounds are fading.
B
The sounds are too loud.
C
The noise is jarring.
D
The noise is soothing.

Explanation

In both excerpts, “dying” suggests that the sound is weakening, while “fall” describes its gradual downward movement in pitch or volume. The phrase therefore means the sounds are fading away, not that they are loud, jarring, or necessarily soothing.

AI-written and checked against the verified answer.

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