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Quiz about Wordsworths Ode Intimations of Immortality
Quiz about Wordsworths Ode Intimations of Immortality

Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality" Quiz


Explore one of William Wordsworth's most popular poems.

A multiple-choice quiz by skylarb. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
skylarb
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
407,174
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
15
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
10 / 15
Plays
938
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
Last 3 plays: Guest 106 (5/15), Guest 106 (7/15), Guest 106 (8/15).
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Question 1 of 15
1. Which of the following most nearly describes the theme of "Intimations of Immortality"? Hint


Question 2 of 15
2. "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem / Apparelled in celestial light, / The glory and the freshness of a" what?

Answer: (One Word, rhymes with stream)
Question 3 of 15
3. What other romantic poet criticized this poem, arguing, "In what sense can the magnificent attributes, above quoted, be appropriated to a child, which would not make them equally suitable to...a dog, or a field of corn: or even to a ship, or to the wind and waves that propel it? The omnipresent Spirit works equally in them, as in the child; and the child is equally unconscious of it as they"? Hint


Question 4 of 15
4. "____ comes and goes, / And lovely is the Rose." What comes and goes? Hint


Question 5 of 15
5. "But yet I know, where'er I go, / That there hath past away a" what "from the earth"? Hint


Question 6 of 15
6. "Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, / And while the young lambs bound / As to the tabor's sound, / To me alone there came a thought of" what? Hint


Question 7 of 15
7. "Our birth is but a sleep and a" what? Hint


Question 8 of 15
8. What biography of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, by Michael Korda, takes its title from a phrase in this poem? Hint


Question 9 of 15
9. Although "heaven lies about us in our infancy," eventually "shades of" what "begin to close / Upon the growing Boy"? Hint


Question 10 of 15
10. Which of the following does Wordsworth NOT call the child in this poem? Hint


Question 11 of 15
11. Wordsworth wants to know why the child "with such earnest pains dost...provoke / the years to bring the inevitable" what? Hint


Question 12 of 15
12. "Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, / And custom lie upon thee with a weight, / Heavy as _____, and deep almost as life!" Heavy as what? Hint


Question 13 of 15
13. "____ of a Creature / Moving about in worlds not realized." What words are missing from this blank? Hint


Question 14 of 15
14. Wordsworth concludes: "Thanks to the human heart by which we live, / Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, / To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for" what?

Answer: (One word, rhymes with fears)
Question 15 of 15
15. Which of the following best describes the form of "Intimations of Immortality"? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Which of the following most nearly describes the theme of "Intimations of Immortality"?

Answer: The loss of childhood innocence

Wordsworth begins his poem with the assumption that a child is born close to the divine, and it is age and society that gradually causes him to lose his innocence. As he becomes more worldly, he loses sight of the divine glory in nature. The full title of the poem is "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood". It is sometimes called "Immortality Ode".
2. "There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, / The earth, and every common sight, To me did seem / Apparelled in celestial light, / The glory and the freshness of a" what?

Answer: dream

The poet begins by describing the divine glory he saw in nature as a child and then how that sense has been lost:

"It is not now as it hath been of yore;-
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more."

Wordsworth served as Poet Laureate of England beginning in 1843.
3. What other romantic poet criticized this poem, arguing, "In what sense can the magnificent attributes, above quoted, be appropriated to a child, which would not make them equally suitable to...a dog, or a field of corn: or even to a ship, or to the wind and waves that propel it? The omnipresent Spirit works equally in them, as in the child; and the child is equally unconscious of it as they"?

Answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Coleridge made this criticism in "Biographia Literaria". Byron was also dismissive of the poem, but without commentary. Over time, however, it has come to be regarded as one of Wordsworth greatest works and is even sometimes called the "Great Ode".
4. "____ comes and goes, / And lovely is the Rose." What comes and goes?

Answer: The rainbow

"The Rainbow comes and goes,
And lovely is the Rose,
The Moon doth with delight
Look round her when the heavens are bare,
Waters on a starry night
Are beautiful and fair;
The sunshine is a glorious birth."

William Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1770 and became one of the most prominent poets of the Romantic Age. Along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, he published "Lyrical Ballads" in 1978. His greatest work is generally considered to be the semi-autobiographical poem "The Prelude".
5. "But yet I know, where'er I go, / That there hath past away a" what "from the earth"?

Answer: glory

Wordsworth was married to his childhood friend Mary Hutchinson. He died from pleurisy (an inflammation of the membranes that surround the lungs) on April 23, 1850.
6. "Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, / And while the young lambs bound / As to the tabor's sound, / To me alone there came a thought of" what?

Answer: grief

"Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor's sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief..."

Despite all the beauty around him, the man, unable to see the divine glory in nature, feels grief. However, a new perspective gives him relief and strengthens him:

"A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong.
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong..."

But the poet's mood swings once again, and he loses sight of that glory:

"Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream?"
7. "Our birth is but a sleep and a" what?

Answer: forgetting

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar."

Here Wordsworth expresses a doctrine of pre-existence, the belief that each human soul existed before physical conception and at some point before birth enters the body. In AD 553, pre-existence was condemned as heresy in the Second Council of Constantinople, but the second and third-century church father Origen advocated a version of the doctrine.
8. What biography of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, by Michael Korda, takes its title from a phrase in this poem?

Answer: Clouds of Glory

"Clouds of Glory: The Life and Legend of Robert E. Lee" was published in 2014. The title alludes to these lines from Wordsworth:

"Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home..."
9. Although "heaven lies about us in our infancy," eventually "shades of" what "begin to close / Upon the growing Boy"?

Answer: the prison house

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows,
He sees it in his joy;
The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day."

In keeping with the prison theme, Wordsworth later refers to the "Inmate Man."

Wordsworth had five children, three of whom died before he did.
10. Which of the following does Wordsworth NOT call the child in this poem?

Answer: divine babe

Wordsworth depicts the child as a natural philosopher who is closer to the divine truth than the grown man, a prophet and seer in his youth and innocence:

"Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,-
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest
Which we are toiling all our lives to find..."
11. Wordsworth wants to know why the child "with such earnest pains dost...provoke / the years to bring the inevitable" what?

Answer: yoke

"Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?"

A yoke is a wooden crosspiece fastened over the necks of two animals (often ox or cattle) and attached to a plow or cart to enable the animals to pull it. The word is often used as a metaphor for burden in general.
12. "Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight, / And custom lie upon thee with a weight, / Heavy as _____, and deep almost as life!" Heavy as what?

Answer: frost

The poem continues:

"O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That Nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!"

Wordsworth was born on April 7, 1170 in Cockermouth, Cumberland, England and died at age 80 in Rydal, Westmorland.
13. "____ of a Creature / Moving about in worlds not realized." What words are missing from this blank?

Answer: Blank misgivings

Wordsworth's poem takes a turn and the poet finds value in the uncertainty that accompanies the loss of innocence:

"Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realised..."

In 1841, Arthur Hugh Clough, a poet and assistant to Florence Nightingale, took this line to form a title for his own poem, "Blank Misgivings Of A Creature Moving About In Worlds Not Realised".
14. Wordsworth concludes: "Thanks to the human heart by which we live, / Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, / To me the meanest flower that blows can give / Thoughts that do often lie too deep for" what?

Answer: tears

Wordsworth received honorary doctorates in Civil Law from both the University of Durham and the University of Oxford. In addition to this work, he composed numerous other poems, including a series of five poems known as "The Lucy Poems", four of which were included in the second edition of "Lyrical Ballads".
15. Which of the following best describes the form of "Intimations of Immortality"?

Answer: An irregular Pindaric ode

Pindar was an Ancient Geek lyric poet. A Pindaric ode consists of three sections and is characterized by irregular line lengths and rhyme schemes. Wordsworth's ode contains 11 stanzas split into three sections.
Source: Author skylarb

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor looney_tunes before going online.
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