Elegy for the End Trivia Quiz

Answer: "No Man Is an Island" (John Donne)

"No Man Is an Island" is part of John Donne's "Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions", a prose-poem published in 1624. Donne wrote the "Devotions" in December of the previous year after recovering from a serious illness: each of the 23 devotions, split in three parts, covers a single day of that difficult period in the poet's life. Featured in the first part of the 17th devotion, "No Man is an Island", is probably the best-known excerpt from the work (as well as one of Donne's most frequently anthologized works), usually presented as a poem of 13 lines even if originally written in prose.

Though written over 400 years ago, the poem is surprisingly modern in tone and content. By employing geographical imagery such as continents and islands, Donne recognizes that each person in the world is not an isolated fragment, but is connected to everyone else. Therefore, the loss of even a single human being (compared to a clod of earth in line 5) affects the whole of humankind - so that when someone dies we are reminded of our own mortality and the inevitability of death.

The phrase "for whom the bell tolls" was used by Ernest Hemingway for the title of his famous 1940 novel set during the Spanish Civil War.

Answer: "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" (William Wordsworth)

The complete title of this work by William Wordsworth is "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". The poem was written in the form of an irregular Pindaric ode consisting of 11 stanzas. The first four stanzas were composed in 1802, and the remaining seven in early 1804, when Wordsworth was finally able to answer the question at the end of the fourth stanza - "Where is it now, the glory and the dream?". The current version of the poem was published in 1815.

"Ode: Intimations of Immortality" is one of the many poems Wordsworth wrote in 1802, reminiscing about his childhood and his ability to experience an immortal presence in nature, which he felt had faded away once he reached adulthood. This concept is admirably conveyed by the lines quoted in the question (from the tenth stanza): the sense of mourning for the loss of that unparalleled sense of wonder at the beauty of nature is tempered by acceptance of life as it is, and eventually of our own mortality.

The phrase "splendour in the grass" was used as the title of a 1961 film (starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood) about teenage love and heartbreak. Wood's character, Deanie, is heard reciting these lines at the end of the film.

Answer: "Do not go gentle into that good night" (Dylan Thomas)

Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle into that good night" may very well be the most recognizable of the poems featured in this quiz. Written in 1947 during a trip to Florence with his family, the poem was first published in 1951 - two years before the poet's untimely death - in the Italian literary journal "Botteghe Oscure". Simply titled after its first line, the poem has the form of a villanelle, a poetic form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain (for a total of 19 lines); the first and third line of the opening tercet are repeated throughout the poem as refrains. The one quoted here is the last of the five tercets.

The final stanza of "Do not go gentle into that good night" is addressed to Thomas' father - who, however, died in 1952, a few years after the poem's composition, and shortly before his son. In any case, the poem explores the theme of the inevitability of death, seen as something humans should fight against even though they are aware their fight is futile. Different people's attitudes towards the approach of death are described with powerful imagery that hinges on the contrast between the light of life and the night of death.

Answer: "Lady Lazarus" (Sylvia Plath)

Published for the first time in 1965, two years after the poet's death, as part of the collection "Ariel", "Lady Lazarus" may be regarded as a kind of manifesto of Sylvia Plath's unique brand of confessional poetry. Written in free verse, the poem consists of 28 tercet stanzas, two of which are quoted here. Unlike most of Plath's output, "Lady Lazarus" is defiant rather than tormented, its jaunty rhythm reinforcing its powerful images of death and rebirth - hinted at by the title and the reference to the phoenix in the closing stanza.

Throughout the poem there are mentions of Plath's suicide attempts, as well as rather disturbing references to the Holocaust. The latter form a connection to the poet's conflicted relationship with her German-born father, who had died when she was eight, and whom she portrayed as a Nazi sympathizer in "Daddy", also included in "Ariel". The ending of the poem juxtaposes images of rebirth and revenge ("I eat men like air") - the latter likely targeted at her husband and fellow poet, Ted Hughes, who left Plath for another woman.

Answer: "Sailing to Byzantium" (William Butler Yeats)

William Butler Yeats was 61 years old when he wrote "Sailing to Byzantium" in 1926. The poem, one of Yeats' most famous, was first published in 1927 in the collection "October Blast", and then republished in "The Tower" the following year. Consisting of four eight-line stanzas that follow the "ottava rima" scheme (ABABABCC), the poem is believed to have been inspired by a visit to the Italian city of Ravenna, where Yeats saw the magnificent Byzantine mosaics that are referenced in the third stanza (from which the quoted lines are also taken).

The central theme of "Sailing to Byzantium" is the contrast between nature and art - the former inevitably connected to aging and death, the latter affording human beings a kind of eternal life. Aware of his advancing age, Yeats laments the lack of consideration that society gives to older people. He uses Byzantium as a metaphor for an ideal paradise where he will be allowed to shed the prison of his deteriorating body ("a dying animal") and become pure spirit, able to exist outside time by leaving nature behind. A few years later, Yeats wrote a sequel titled "Byzantium" (published in 1933 as part of the collection "The Winding Stair") in which he finds a way to reconcile the physical and the spiritual worlds.

Answer: "Requiem" (Robert Louis Stevenson)

Although mainly renowned for his works of adventure and Gothic fiction, Robert Louis Stevenson also authored a respectable body of poetry, notably his 1885 collection of children's poems "A Child's Garden of Verses". The short poem "Requiem" - an epitaph that Stevenson, who was plagued with ill health for all his life, wrote for himself - appeared in the collection "Underwoods", published in 1887, a few years before the poet's death in 1894, at the age of 44. The poem is inscribed on Stevenson's tomb on the slopes of Mount Vaea, near Apia, the capital of Samoa in the South Pacific.

Consisting of just eight lines divided in two stanzas, "Requiem" is a simple but deeply poignant poem that reflects Stevenson's contentment with his life, with all its joys and sorrows, and his acceptance of death. The second stanza (quoted in the question) conveys a profound sense of peace, comparing death with the return home of a sailor and a hunter after their work is done. The reader is given to understand that the poet has no regrets, and is ready to face his demise without fear, knowing he lived his life well.

Answer: "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" (Thomas Gray)

One of the undisputed classics of English-language poetry, Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" could not have been omitted from a quiz that bears the word "elegy" in its title. Written in 1751, the poem - a meditation on death and remembrance after death - reflects much of its author's life experience, marked by the loss of people close to him. One of these people was his friend and fellow poet Richard West, whose untimely death at least partially inspired Gray's poem. Often cited as a prime example of the use of the iambic pentameter - whose slow, solemn rhythm perfectly complements the subject matter - "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" consists of 29 stanzas (116 lines), plus a 12-line epitaph included after the poem's conclusion.

Though "graveyard poetry" was fashionable at the time when "Elegy" was composed, Gray eschews the macabre details that were a hallmark of this genre, keeping a somber but dignified tone throughout the poem. The first stanza is featured here, setting the mood with its vivid description of a peaceful twilight hour in the countryside. Later in the poem Gray focuses on the people buried in the churchyard and their forgotten lives, musing about the inequities of life and the nature of death as the great equalizer. Towards the end, a second speaking voice appears, meditating on the tomb of the first speaker - a poet prevented from achieving greatness by adverse circumstances.

Answer: "The Waste Land IV: Death by Water" (T. S. Eliot)

First published in 1922 in "The Criterion", T.S. Eliot's own literary magazine, "The Waste Land" is widely regarded as one of the landmarks of 20th-century literature, and a masterpiece of modernist poetry. This often obscure but undeniably powerful work consists of 434 lines divided into five parts, dealing with themes of disillusionment, loss and redemption in the aftermath of WWI in a variety of styles and linguistic registers. The shortest of the poem's five sections, "Death by Water" is written in the form of an epitaph for Phlebas, a drowned Phoenician merchant. His death is foreshadowed by the psychic Madame Sosostris in the first section, "The Burial of the Dead", who also references William Shakespeare's "The Tempest".

Consisting of ten unrhymed lines held together by Eliot's skillful use of alliteration and assonance, "Death by Water" describes Phlebas' death dispassionately, without hinting at any hope of transformation or rebirth. In the lines quoted here, he is briefly shown revisiting his whole life before his body is swallowed by the depths of the sea - forgetting all about his past, and being in turn forgotten. In the tradition of classical epitaphs, the last three lines are addressed to Phlebas' fellow seafarers, reminding them of their own mortality and the shared fate of humankind.

Answer: "When Great Trees Fall" (Maya Angelou)

Known for her autobiographical works and civil rights activism, Maya Angelou also produced a extensive body of poetry during her long literary career. Often referred to as the Black woman's poet laureate, she infused her poems with her charismatic personality when she recited them in public - as on the occasion of the first inauguration of US President Bill Clinton in 1993. The most recent of the poems featured in this quiz, "When Great Trees Fall" was written in 1987 for the death of Angelou's close friend and fellow writer James Baldwin. The poem, recited by Angelou at Baldwin's funeral, was later included in the collection "I Shall Not Be Moved" (1990).

In "When Great Trees Fall", Angelou compares influential people to the great trees in a forest, whose fall makes the earth tremble and causes animals to hide in fear. In the same way, the death of those "great souls" sends shock waves throughout the world, creating a sense of profound loss that borders on despair. However, when the shock and grief eventually recede, we feel comforted by the mere fact that these exceptional human beings existed and showed us that it is possible to improve the world. With a message that offers hope to the bereaved, "When Great Trees Fall" has become a popular poem to read at funerals.

Answer: "Because I could not stop for Death" (Emily Dickinson)

Like all of Emily Dickinson's poems, "Because I could not stop for Death" does not have a real title, but is designated by its first line. However, when it was first published in 1890, four years after the poet's death, it was given the title "The Chariot" by Dickinson's friends, Mabel Loomis Todd and Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who assembled and edited her poems - dispensing with Dickinson's idiosyncratic use of punctuation and capitalization. The poem consists of six quatrains in common metre (alternating iambic tetrameters and iambic trimeters), with an irregular rhyme scheme and extensive use of poetic devices such as alliteration and personification.

In the poem Dickinson describes her encounter with Death, presented as a distinguished gentleman who takes her for a ride his carriage. While the first three stanzas have a gently wistful tone, describing the journey as a leisurely ride through the countryside, the remaining stanzas are more ambiguous and subtly disturbing - the air suddenly growing chill, and the carriage eventually stopping before a "house" that is clearly a grave. While the references to immortality and eternity are intentionally vague - leaving Dickinson's belief in the afterlife in doubt - the poem reveals a sense of calm acceptance of death, seen as a natural part of life rather than a frightening experience.