Poetry Trivia Questions
In case you missed them, here are the past five Columbia Granger's World of Poetry trivia questions of the day. You can also receive our poetry
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October 7
Question:
Who was blind for more of his lifetime, John Milton or Jorge Luis Borges?
Answer
John Milton was blind for the last 20 years of his life, Jorge Luis Borges for the last 31 years of his. While Borges was blind for more years, they were both blind for approximately the final third of their lives.
October 6
Question:
Who claimed Apollo had admonished him to "fatten his flock, but keep his muse slender"?
Answer
Callimachus wrote of receiving this advice about crafting shorter lyric poems instead of the imitations of Homer that were popular at the time.
October 5
Question:
What German Romantic wrote a poem about a blue flower, the emblem of German Romanticism?
Answer
While "Novalis" (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg) wrote of the blue flower in his unfinished novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen , it was Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff who wrote the poem "Die blaue Blume" ("The Blue Flower").
October 4
Question:
Why was Ovid banished from Rome in 8 c.e.?
Answer
Ovid wrote that it was because of "carmen et error" (a poem and a mistake). What mistake and which poem are not known, but the Ars Amatoria and a love affair with one of Augustus's female relatives are suspected.
October 3
Question:
Whom did Russian poet Anna Akhmatova translate to earn money after her own poems were censored for her being a 'bourgeois element'?
Answer
Anna Akhmatova translated the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi.
