Poetry Trivia Questions
In case you missed them, here are the past five Columbia Granger's World of Poetry trivia questions of the day. .
September 30
Question:
How many of Emily Dickinson's poems were published during her lifetime?
Answer
Of 1,789 extant poems, only 10 were published before she died in 1886.
September 29
Question:
To whom was Arthur Rimbaud's letter, which contained the famous words "Je est un autre" ("I is an other"), addressed?
Answer
French professor George Alphonse Fleury Izambard received Rimbaud's famous letter in 1871. A year earlier he had given Rimbaud a copy of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables .
September 28
September 27
Question:
What book is sometimes called the first novel though it contains nearly 800 poems?
Answer
The Tale of Genji was written by Murasaki Shikibu. Despite the description as a novel, it was written in a form that combines prose with poetry and contains nearly 800 poems, which have come to be esteemed more highly than the prose.
September 26
Question:
What medical condition allowed Percy Bysshe Shelley's heart, upon its failing to catch fire, to be grabbed from the funeral pyre, given to Mary Shelley, and eventually buried 67 years later with their son?
Answer
According to a 1955 article by Arthur Norman in the Journal of Historical Medicine, Shelley may have suffered from a progressively calcifying heart, which would have kept it from burning with the rest of his remains.
