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Quiz about The Ode Less Travelled
Quiz about The Ode Less Travelled

The Ode Less Travelled Trivia Quiz


Since reading Stephen Fry's book, I now know my iamb from my anapaest. Test your knowledge of poetic terminology in this quiz based on 'The Ode Less Travelled'.

A multiple-choice quiz by rosc. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
rosc
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
224,104
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Tough
Avg Score
6 / 10
Plays
389
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Which one of these words is a trochee? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. What is a pyrrhic foot? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Which of these lines of iambic pentameter has a weak ending? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. There are lots of variations in ternary feet, consisting of three syllables. How would you describe this one: 'romantic'? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Which of these lines begins with two dactyls? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. We all know what rhyme is. Or do we? What kind of rhyme is 'alone/home'? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. What rhyme scheme does a rubai follow? (You may want to think of the 'Ruba'iat of Omar Khayyam' which follows this scheme even in its English translation. Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. Which of these poems is a villanelle? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. If you think a villanelle's convoluted and bizarre, how about this? What poetic form has six stanzas each of six lines all ending in the same six words, used in a strict spiral rotation, followed by a final three-line stanza which must include all six words? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' is an example of which poetic form? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Which one of these words is a trochee?

Answer: wonder

A trochee is a foot (that is, a metrical division) consisting of two syllables with a stress on the first. The other words are all iambs, with the stress on the second.
2. What is a pyrrhic foot?

Answer: A foot with no stressed syllables.

See if you can spot the pyrrhic foot in these famous lines by Robert Frost:

'The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep.'

The poem is iambic tetrameter so you would expect there to be a stress on the final syllable of 'promises'. But that sounds silly. It's better not to stress either syllable in the foot '-mises' and so it is pyrrhic.
3. Which of these lines of iambic pentameter has a weak ending?

Answer: To be or not to be, that is the question.

Though 'I'd really like some biscuits I can dunk' is pretty weak poetry, it does have a strong (i.e. stressed) ending. A weak ending is an extra, unstressed syllable at the end of a line which doesn't change the fundamental metre of the poem.
4. There are lots of variations in ternary feet, consisting of three syllables. How would you describe this one: 'romantic'?

Answer: Amphibrach

An amphibrach is a ternary foot with the stress on the second syllable. Anapaests have the stress on the third syllable, dactyls on the first syllable and molossi (I think that's probably the plural form!) have three equally stressed syllables.
5. Which of these lines begins with two dactyls?

Answer: I like the city of San Juan.

It's from Stephen Sondheim's lyrics for 'West Side Story'. The tune makes the stresses even clearer (on 'I' and 'ci-', both followed by two unstressed syllables forming the dactyls.) The line ends with a spondee, 'San Juan' - a binary foot with two equally stressed syllables.
Try reading the other lines with the emphasis on the first syllable and you'll soon find that they couldn't possibly be dactyls.
6. We all know what rhyme is. Or do we? What kind of rhyme is 'alone/home'?

Answer: Slant rhyme

Slant or partial rhyme involves matching vowel sounds and similar, but not identical consonant sounds. If the consonants do not match at all, this is assonance, e.g. plough/down.

Feminine rhyme involves rhyming a stressed syllable in a foot which ends in an unstressed syllable. This last syllable is not rhymed but matched, e.g. beating/heating; battle/cattle.

Eye rhyme and rich rhyme aren't really rhyme at all. Eye rhyme involves words which look as if they rhyme but don't (e.g. love/prove) and rich rhyme involves words which sound exactly the same though they may be spelt differently (e.g. fowl/foul, weight/wait).
7. What rhyme scheme does a rubai follow? (You may want to think of the 'Ruba'iat of Omar Khayyam' which follows this scheme even in its English translation.

Answer: aaba

'A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!'

From Edward Fitzgerald's translation of the 'Ruba'iat of Omar Khayyam'.
8. Which of these poems is a villanelle?

Answer: 'Do not go gentle into that good night' by Dylan Thomas.

A villanelle is an incredibly complex sounding poetic form which is actually quite easy to write (though not to write well!). There are six stanzas. The first five have three lines and the final one has four. The first line of the poem is repeated at the end of the second and fourth stanzas and in the third line of the final stanza.

The last line of the first stanza is repeated at the end of the third, fifth and final stanza. I hope that's cleared that up!
9. If you think a villanelle's convoluted and bizarre, how about this? What poetic form has six stanzas each of six lines all ending in the same six words, used in a strict spiral rotation, followed by a final three-line stanza which must include all six words?

Answer: A sestina.

If you're interested (and why wouldn't you be?) Arnaut's Algorithm for determining the rotation of the words in each stanza is available on p351 of 'The Ode Less Travelled.'
10. Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde' is an example of which poetic form?

Answer: Rhyme Royal

The rhyme scheme is: ababbcc. No-one quite knows why it's called Royal, though some think it's because it was later used by Henry IV.

Hope you've enjoyed the quiz and maybe learned something to impress your friends with along the way!
Source: Author rosc

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
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