The Capacity of My Heart Trivia Quiz

Answer: Christopher Marlowe

These are the opening lines of 'The Passionate Shepherdess to his Love', by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), which was posthumously published in 1599. It is considered a prime example of the use of iambic tetrameter quatrains which became standard for pastoral British poems. (In other words, it is made up of verses that have four lines, in this case two rhyming pairs; each line has four batches of syllables which are an unstressed one followed by a stressed one. Read the first line aloud to see how that works.) It elicited a number of "response" poems, most notably that of Sir Walter Raleigh called 'The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd'. Other responses have been penned by John Donne, Robert Herrick, C. Day Lewis, William Carlos Williams and Ogden Nash.

During his life, Marlowe was better known as a playwright, considered the leading writer of tragedies in his day. His early death in mysterious circumstances cleared the field for the emergence of William Shakespeare. There is an interesting theory that he actually faked his death, and was the real writer of the works attributed to Shakespeare, but most scholars do not accept it as a viable proposition.

Here's the rest of the poem:

"Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me, and be my love."

Answer: William Shakespeare

The sonnets of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) provide abundant familiar lines about love - I could equally have chosen "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day" from 'Sonnet 18', or indeed the opening line and a half of 'Sonnet 116', from which I extracted the quote in the question. Like almost all of the 154 sonnets included in the collection printed in 1609, it uses a form called the Shakespearean (or Elizabethan) sonnet (although many people just call it a sonnet, ignoring the various other sonnet forms used by other poets). This means that it is composed of three verses of four lines in which alternate lines rhyme, followed by a rhyming couplet, for a total of 14 lines. They are written in iambic pentameter (five feet each having an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable), the same meter that Shakespeare used in his plays.

Here's the entirety of this poem:

"Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd."

Answer: Andrew Marvell

'To His Coy Mistress', by Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), is yet another poem that will be familiar to many from school days. It was published posthumously in 1681; the time of its writing is uncertain, but has usually been placed somewhere between 1645 and 1660. The poem is generally classified as an example of 'carpe diem' poetry, in that it urges the reader to 'seize the day', act on impulse, don't play it safe and worry about consequences. The first verse talks about all the activities in which one might engage while slowly developing a romantic relationship if there were absolutely no rush; the second verse makes it clear why that doesn't work for the author; the third says that it is only logical to make mad passionate love here and now.

This poem is too long to include here, but the second verse may include some familiar lines:

"But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long-preserved virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust;
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace."

Answer: Robert Burns

'A Red, Red Rose' is another poem with a number of familiar lines, which may have been identified as coming from the pen of Robert Burns (1759-1796) by the use of the traditional spelling to mimic Scottish pronunciation. Like a number of his other poems, it was originally published as a song, in 1794. It may or may not have been written by him - when it was originally published, it was said that the song was a traditional one, which Burns had heard sung and written down. He may have adapted a traditional song, and he may have stolen lines from a number of popular songs of the time and put them together. Whatever, the poem is now ascribed to the man who is widely considered the national poet of Scotland.

If you know the tune, you might want to sing this instead of reading it:

"O my Luve is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve is like the melody
That's sweetly played in tune.

So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile."

Answer: Lord Byron

George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788-1824) is usually referred to as Lord Byron when his work as a poet is being discussed. He was one of the leading poets of the Romantic Movement, which was culturally prominent from the end of the 18th century until the middle of the 19th. To some extent it was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution, and the emphasis of the late 19th century on scientific rationalism; Romantics preferred to focus on the individual (especially on emotional responses) and the glories of nature. 'The First Kiss of Love', written in 1806, exemplifies the spirit of Romanticism, in its insistence that no description of love could ever replace the actual experience.

It is much too long to include in its entirety, but here are the first two verses:

"Away with your fictions of flimsy romance;
Those tissues of falsehood which folly has wove!
Give me the mild beam of the soul-breathing glance,
Or the rapture which dwells on the first kiss of love.

Ye rhymers, whose bosoms with phantasy glow,
Whose pastoral passions are made for the grove;
From what blest inspiration your sonnets would flow,
Could you ever have tasted the first kiss of love!"

Answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley

These are the closing lines to 'Love's Philosophy', first published in 1819 by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822). The words were slightly rewritten when it was later included in a book, to read "What are all these sweet works worth". It is sometimes used in schools (which are prepared to either ignore or confront the obvious sexual nature of the poem) as an example of personification - various inanimate objects are described as carrying out human-like activities: mingling, kissing, clasping, disdaining. It was written by another leading Romantic poet, and close personal friend of Byron, but whose reputation was mostly established after his death in a sailing accident at a young age.

"The fountains mingle with the river,
And the rivers with the ocean;
The winds of heaven mix forever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In another's being mingle-
Why not I with thine?

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister flower could be forgiven
If it disdained its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea; -
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?"

Answer: John Keats

The best known poems by John Keats (1795-1821) are probably his odes ('Ode to a Nightingale' and 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' spring immediately to mind), but they don't fit in with the theme of this quiz. I selected a lesser-known poem because I didn't want to overlook entirely this third member of the Byron, Shelley, Keats Romantic trio. Like them, he died young - in his case from tuberculosis at the age of 25. 'You say you love; but with a voice', also known as 'O love me truly' was written in 1817 or 1818. It is somewhat reminiscent in tone of Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress', in that it is addressed to a beloved whose passion does not seem to match her suitor's. It is composed in five verses, each with five lines (the second and fourth rhyming), the last line of each verse being the refrain, "O love me truly!"

You say you love; but with a voice
Chaster than a nun's, who singeth
The soft Vespers to herself
While the chime-bell ringeth -
O love me truly!

You say you love; but with a smile
Cold as sunrise in September,
As you were Saint Cupid's nun,
And kept his weeks of Ember.
O love me truly!

You say you love - but then your lips
Coral tinted teach no blisses.
More than coral in the sea -
They never pout for kisses -
O love me truly!

You say you love; but then your hand
No soft squeeze for squeeze returneth,
It is like a statue's dead -
While mine to passion burneth -
O love me truly!

O breathe a word or two of fire!
Smile, as if those words should burn be,
Squeeze as lovers should - O kiss
And in thy heart inurn me!
O love me truly!

Answer: Edgar Allan Poe

Although Poe (1809-1849) is better known for his short stories, he was also a skilled poet. 'Annabel Lee', the last poem he composed, reflects on the joy of love, and the grief that followed on the death of his beloved. Their bodies may be separated by death, but he contends that their spirits remain united, as he joins her every night in sleep. Although the subject of the poem is not known for sure, it is generally considered to have been inspired by the death of his wife (and cousin, who was 13 when she married the 27-year-old Poe, following the development of their relationship over a period of six years) from tuberculosis in 1847. There are a number of other suggestions - the mother who died when he was only two, any one of a number of women with whom he had previously been involved, and a Baltimore legend have all been suggested as possibilities.

The entire poem is too long to include, but here are the first two verses for you to enjoy:

"It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee-
With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven
Coveted her and me."

Answer: Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barret (1806-1861) published a volume of poems simply titled 'Poems' in 1844, which so captured the imagination of the established poet Robert Browning that he wrote to her, courted her and subsequently, against her father's wishes, married her; the couple lived in Italy for most of the fifteen years of their marriage. She published 'Sonnets from the Portuguese', a collection of 44 love poems, claiming at first that she had merely translated them, to protect to some degree the privacy of the couple's relationship. They include some of the best-known examples of love poetry in the English language, including 'Sonnet 43':

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death."

Answer: Oscar Wilde

One might feel surprised to find Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) writing a poem from the perspective of a woman, but such is the case here. Unlike most of the other poems selected for this quiz, 'Her Voice' is not about the anticipation of, or the exultation in, a loving relationship, but about the depth of sorrow that may be caused the ending of a relationship, not by death, but because it has simply run its course. The poem is told by a woman (hence the title, which is in contrast to the companion poem 'My Voice', the poem that immediately followed this one in the original 1881 collection of poems) who starts by recalling when she first declared her love, and believed it would last forever. After noting all the aspects of nature which still seem unchanged, she concludes by acknowledging that

"Sweet, there is nothing left to say
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May
Whose crimson roses burst his frost,
Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbour in some bay,
And so we may.

And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty,- you your Art,
Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
Like me and you."