Free Poetry MCQs with Answers
889 Poetry MCQs from English Literature, each with the correct answer and a written explanation of why it is correct. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.
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889 questions · page 12 of 45
- A. The Man of Feeling
- B. In Memoriam
- C. Song to Aella
- D. Ozymandias
Explanation: These famous lines come from Shelley's sonnet “Ozymandias,” in which the ruined statue of a proud ruler exposes the impermanence of…
Correct answer: Ozymandias- A. Lord Byron
- B. Percy Bysshe Shelley
- C. William Woodsworth
- D. Emily Dickinson
Explanation: The quotation comes from Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias," where the ruined statue mocks the pride and impermanence of political…
Correct answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley- A. Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock
- B. Sonnets from the Portuguese
- C. Prelude
- D. The Last Decalogue
Explanation: The line appears in T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," whose speaker measures his hesitant, routine-bound life through…
Correct answer: Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock- A. Kubla Khan
- B. Hellas
- C. The Phoenix and the Turtle
- D. The Castaway
Explanation: These opening lines belong to Coleridge’s visionary fragment “Kubla Khan,” whose imagery centres on Xanadu and the pleasure dome.
Correct answer: Kubla Khan- A. Heroine
- B. Cocaine
- C. Alcohol
- D. Opium
Explanation: Coleridge was addicted chiefly to opium, which he used partly to manage pain and illness.
Correct answer: Opium- A. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe
- B. Swift's Gulliver's Travels
- C. Behn's Oroonoko
- D. Pope's The Rape of the Lock
Explanation: Pope’s “The Rape of the Lock” satirises the vanity, trivial quarrels and artificial social manners of fashionable eighteenth-century…
Correct answer: Pope's The Rape of the Lock- A. Gay's Beggar's Opera
- B. Butler's Hudibras
- C. Fielding's Jonathan Wild
- D. Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel
Explanation: Dryden’s “Absalom and Achitophel” uses biblical allegory to comment on the political and religious crisis surrounding the Restoration and…
Correct answer: Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel- A. Mary Wollstonecraft and William Blake
- B. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Percy B. Shelley
- C. William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- D. Charles Lamb and William HazlittRead Classic Poetry
Explanation: “Lyrical Ballads” was jointly produced by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and its 1798 publication is commonly treated as…
Correct answer: William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge- A. the heroic couplet
- B. blank verse
- C. free verse
- D. the ode
Explanation: Alexander Pope brought the heroic couplet to exceptional polish and control, making it the characteristic verse form of much…
Correct answer: the heroic couplet- A. Adonais
- B. Bright Star
- C. Ode on a Grecian Urn
- D. La Bell Dame Sans Merci
Explanation: The line appears at the close of Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn, where the urn links beauty and truth through its enduring artistic form.
Correct answer: Ode on a Grecian Urn- A. William Shakespeare
- B. John Donne
- C. Abraham Cowley
- D. John Dryden
Explanation: Sir John Denham wrote in tribute to Abraham Cowley, presenting him as a major poetic light after Chaucer.
Correct answer: Abraham Cowley- A. Ben Jonson
- B. Alexander Pope
- C. Robert Herrick
- D. John Dryden
Explanation: Robert Herrick wrote both devotional and secular verse, including “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.” Its opening advice, “Gather ye…
Correct answer: Robert Herrick- A. Alexander Pope
- B. William Collins
- C. Thomas Gray
- D. Ben Jonson
Explanation: Thomas Gray wrote “Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes,” a playful poem contrasting with his more serious…
Correct answer: Thomas Gray- A. William Butler Yeats
- B. James Joyce
- C. Thomas Moore
- D. Edgar Allan Poe
Explanation: “Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold” is from Yeats's “The Second Coming.” The line expresses the poem's vision of social and…
Correct answer: William Butler Yeats- A. Coleridge's Dejection: An Ode
- B. Blake's "Prophetic Books"
- C. Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Woman
- D. all but C
Explanation: The intended answer groups Coleridge's “Dejection: An Ode” with Blake's Prophetic Books because both engage with imaginative renewal and…
Correct answer: all but C- A. Seagull
- B. Albatross
- C. Humming Bird
- D. Crow
Explanation: The Ancient Mariner shoots an albatross, a large seabird, in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem.
Correct answer: Albatross- A. William Carlos Williams
- B. T.S. Eliot
- C. Ernest Hemingway
- D. Hart Crane
Explanation: The line appears in T. S. Eliot’s poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” where coffee spoons suggest a life reduced to repetitive…
Correct answer: T.S. Eliot238. Alexander Pope coined many a modern day cliché. Which of the following did not originate with him ?
- A. To err is human, to forgive divine
- B. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath
- C. A little learning is a dangerous thing
- D. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Explanation: “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath” comes from the Bible, specifically Ephesians 4:26, rather than from Alexander Pope.
Correct answer: Let not the sun go down upon your wrath- A. civilization
- B. woman
- C. God
- D. nature
Explanation: Augustan poets frequently treated nature as both a source of aesthetic pleasure and a subject for intellectual investigation.
Correct answer: nature- A. Danes and English
- B. Dutch and English
- C. Normans and English
- D. French and English
Explanation: The Battle of Maldon commemorates the Battle of Maldon in 991, when an English force fought Viking Danes.
Correct answer: Danes and English