FREE! Click here to Join FunTrivia. Thousands of games, quizzes, and lots more!
Quiz about Immortal Lines from Classic Poems
Quiz about Immortal Lines from Classic Poems

Immortal Lines from Classic Poems Quiz


This quiz is about some of the most famous opening/last lines in English poetry over the centuries. Identify the poem from the lines given. You will hopefully go back and read the whole poem after this quiz :)

A multiple-choice quiz by srini701. Estimated time: 4 mins.
  1. Home
  2. »
  3. Quizzes
  4. »
  5. Literature Trivia
  6. »
  7. Poetry
  8. »
  9. Poetic Quotes

Author
srini701
Time
4 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
311,638
Updated
Jan 12 23
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
7 / 10
Plays
2002
Awards
Top 20% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 172 (5/10), Guest 96 (5/10), matthewpokemon (10/10).
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. Which epic poem starts with the following lines: "Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit/ Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste/Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,"
Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. These immortal lines appear in which poem? "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. These are the last lines from which classic love poem? "I love with the breath,/ Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,/I shall but love thee better after death."
Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. Which poem/sermon of John Donne contains these famous lines? "No man is an island,/ Entire of itself./ Each is a piece of the continent,/ A part of the main." Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. These sad lines mark the opening of which famous poem? "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,/ The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,/ The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,/ And leaves the world to darkness and to me." Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Which classic adventure poem ends with these great lines? "One equal-temper of heroic hearts,/ Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."
Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. Which well-known poem of P B Shelley contain these lines? "The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, /If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. "Five years have past;/five summers, with the length Of five long winters!/ and again I hear/These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs/With a soft inland murmur." These are the opening lines of which Romantic age poem? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. Which very inspirational poem ends with the following lines? "If you can fill the unforgiving minute/With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,/ Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,/ And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!" Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. This modern English masterpiece is preceded by an epigraph from "The Satyricon" of Petronius. In English, it translates to: "I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her, Sibyl, what do you want? she replied I want to die." The poem was dedicated "For Ezra Pound". Which modern classic is this epigraph from? Hint



(Optional) Create a Free FunTrivia ID to save the points you are about to earn:

arrow Select a User ID:
arrow Choose a Password:
arrow Your Email:




Most Recent Scores
Mar 26 2024 : Guest 172: 5/10
Mar 22 2024 : Guest 96: 5/10
Mar 17 2024 : matthewpokemon: 10/10
Mar 15 2024 : ramses22: 7/10
Mar 15 2024 : Barb2024: 5/10
Mar 15 2024 : Dagny1: 9/10
Mar 15 2024 : GoodwinPD: 10/10
Mar 15 2024 : Eleanor18: 2/10
Mar 15 2024 : HumblePie7: 3/10

Score Distribution

quiz
Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Which epic poem starts with the following lines: "Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit/ Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste/Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,"

Answer: Paradise Lost

These are the opening lines of John Milton's Magnum Opus "Paradise Lost". Milton (1608-1674) was an English poet, writer and civil servant under Oliver Cromwell in the Commonwealth of England. "Paradise Lost" is Milton's greatest work, was written in blank-verse and is ranked as an epic alongside Homer's "Iliad" and Virgil's "Aenid" in its scope. "Paradise Lost" was first published in ten books in 1667, and then in 12 books in 1674 and consists of almost 11,000 lines. Milton followed up "Paradise Lost" with its sequel, "Paradise Regained", and the tragedy "Samson Agonistes", in 1671.

He is also known for his treatise condemning censorship, "Areopagitica".
2. These immortal lines appear in which poem? "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

Answer: Ode on a Grecian Urn

These are the last lines from John Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn". The poem was written in 1819 and is considered one of Keats's "Five Great Odes of 1819" which also included "Ode on Indolence", "Ode on Melancholy", "Ode to a Nightingale", and "To Autumn".

John Keats (1795 - 1821) was one of the greatest poets of the English Romantic movement during the early nineteenth century and in his short lifespan wrote odes which remain to this day among the most popular poems in English literature. Keats died of tuberculosis, contracted during 1820. Shelley wrote a very beautiful elegy called "Adonais" on the death of Keats.
3. These are the last lines from which classic love poem? "I love with the breath,/ Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,/I shall but love thee better after death."

Answer: How Do I Love Thee?

These are the last lines from one of E B Browning's most famous poems, "How Do I Love Thee?", also known as "Sonnet 43". Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806- 1861) was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era and was the wife of another famous poet Robert Browning. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime and she had a major influence on many writers, including Edgar Allan Poe.

"How Do I Love Thee?" is part of a collection of forty-four love sonnets called "Sonnets From The Portuguese" that she wrote during her courtship with Robert Browning.
4. Which poem/sermon of John Donne contains these famous lines? "No man is an island,/ Entire of itself./ Each is a piece of the continent,/ A part of the main."

Answer: For Whom the Bell Tolls

These are the opening lines of John Donne's most famous poem "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The lines were not originally a poem, but part of a sermon ("Meditation #17 From Devotions upon Emergent Occasions") that have been read as a poem down the years.

John Donne (1572 - 1631) was a major figure among the metaphysical poets. He was noted for writing very beautiful and sensuous sonnets, love poetry and songs in his early years and religious poems, elegies, satires and sermons in his later years.

His later sermons influenced many great future works of literature, such as Ernest Hemingway's "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and Thomas Merton's "No Man is an Island". The very last lines of the same poem quoted above are: "Each man's death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind. Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee."
5. These sad lines mark the opening of which famous poem? "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,/ The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,/ The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,/ And leaves the world to darkness and to me."

Answer: Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard

These are the opening lines from Thomas Gray's famous masterpiece "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard". The poem was a literary sensation when first published in 1751 and has made a lasting contribution to English literature. It is still one of the most popular and most frequently quoted poems in the English language.
6. Which classic adventure poem ends with these great lines? "One equal-temper of heroic hearts,/ Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Answer: Ulysses

The last lines of Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses" (not to be confused with Homer's epic or James Joyce's novel of the same name) have since become the motto of many schools and organizations around the world. These lines are also inscribed on a cross at Observation Hill in Antarctica, to commemorate explorer Robert Scott and his party, who died on their return trip from the South Pole in 1912.

Tennyson (1809 - 1892) was a Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language. His most famous poem "In Memoriam A.H.H." is regarded as one of the greatest poems of the 19th century and was a great favorite of Queen Victoria.
7. Which well-known poem of P B Shelley contain these lines? "The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, /If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"

Answer: Ode to the West Wind

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792 - 1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets and is regarded among the finest lyric poets in the English language. He was a major influence on some of the greatest poets and writers of England and the United States, including Robert Browning, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Lord Byron, Henry David Thoreau, William Butler Yeats.

The novelist Mary Shelley ("Frankenstein") was his wife. P B Shelley died suddenly when he drowned in a storm, less than a month before his 30th birthday.
8. "Five years have past;/five summers, with the length Of five long winters!/ and again I hear/These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs/With a soft inland murmur." These are the opening lines of which Romantic age poem?

Answer: Tintern Abbey

The opening lines from William Wordsworth's "Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey on revisiting the banks of the Wye Valley during a tour, July 13, 1798" that is often shortened to "Tintern Abbey", or "Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey".

William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850) was a major English Romantic poet who helped launch the Romantic Age in English literature with Samuel Taylor Coleridge when he published "Lyrical Ballads". His best work is generally considered to be "The Prelude", a semiautobiographical poem. Wordsworth was England's Poet Laureate from 1843 until his death in 1850.
9. Which very inspirational poem ends with the following lines? "If you can fill the unforgiving minute/With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,/ Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,/ And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!"

Answer: If

These are the last lines of one of Kipling's greatest poems (and my own personal favorite) "If". Rudyard Kipling (1865 - 1936) was an English author and poet born in Bombay, India; he is best known for his works of fiction "The Jungle Book", and "Kim". Kipling was one of the most popular writers in both prose and verse, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1907, making him the first English language writer to receive the prize.
10. This modern English masterpiece is preceded by an epigraph from "The Satyricon" of Petronius. In English, it translates to: "I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl of Cumae hanging in a jar, and when the boys said to her, Sibyl, what do you want? she replied I want to die." The poem was dedicated "For Ezra Pound". Which modern classic is this epigraph from?

Answer: The Waste Land

Thomas Stearns Eliot's "The Waste Land" (first published in 1922) is one of modern English's greatest works. The five parts of this poem are entitled: "The Burial of the Dead" (with the famous opening lines "April is the cruelest month/ breeding Lilacs out of the dead land/ mixing Memory and desire,"), "A Game of Chess" "The Fire Sermon" "Death by Water" and "What the Thunder Said". T S Eliot (1888-1965) won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1948.
Source: Author srini701

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor agony before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.
Related Quizzes
This quiz is part of series Nothing in common...:

Except the author! A general mix of some of my quizzes

  1. November 9th in Europe Average
  2. Immortal Lines from Classic Poems Average
  3. Bollywood Fathers and Sons Average
  4. Universities around the World Difficult
  5. Amitabh Bachchan, The Star of the Millennium Average
  6. Our famous 'Namesakes' Average

3/29/2024, Copyright 2024 FunTrivia, Inc. - Report an Error / Contact Us