Poetry Trivia Questions

In case you missed them, here are the past five Columbia Granger's World of Poetry trivia questions of the day. .

  • May 28

    Question:

    With the exception of his first book, which late eighteenth century poet's works were not printed on a letter press?

    Answer ->

    William Blake. As a draftsman and engraver, Blake carved out his poems and the accompanying illustrations on printing plates.

  • May 27

    Question:

    What poets, from the earlier half of the eighteenth century, have been referred to as "proto-Romantics"?

    Answer ->

    Thomas Gray and William Collins. In contrast to the satirists who were their contemporaries, these poets wrote contemplative lyric poems in blank verse, prefiguring the works of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

  • May 26

    Question:

    What English poet, now known as second only to Shakespeare, was better known as a political pamphleteer during his lifetime?

    Answer ->

    John Milton

  • May 25

    Question:

    Who was the first English poet to compile his own collected works, an act disparaged by his contemporaries because he included plays, a literary form considered unworthy of publication?

    Answer ->

    Ben Jonson

  • May 24

    Question:

    Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to his Love" is a classic poem of ingenuous entreaty. Which of Marlowe's fellow Elizabethans wrote a skeptical response to his poem?

    Answer ->

    Sir Walter Ralegh. His "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd" expresses doubts about the "truth in every shepherd's tongue."

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