Q 01/05

Shakespeare's 1609 sonnets open with a cryptic dedication to whom?

A) The Dark Lady

B) Mr. W.H.

C) Queen Elizabeth I

D) Ben Jonson

Answer · why

B) Mr. W.H.

Mr. W.H. is hailed as 'the onlie begetter' of the sonnets, and his identity is still debated, with William Herbert and Henry Wriothesley leading candi...

Q 02/05

What is the rhyme scheme of a Shakespearean (English) sonnet?

A) ABBA ABBA CDE CDE

B) AABB CCDD EEFF GG

C) ABAB BCBC CDCD EE

D) ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Answer · why

D) ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG bears Shakespeare's name, but Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, had established that form of three quatrains and a couplet decades befor...

Q 03/05

Of Emily Dickinson's nearly 1,800 poems, roughly how many were published in her lifetime?

A) About 10

B) About 50

C) About 250

D) About 1,200

Answer · why

A) About 10

About 10 of Dickinson's poems appeared in print while she lived, anonymously and heavily edited, and her sister Lavinia found the rest after her death...

Q 04/05

Emily Dickinson's poems are recognisable for slant rhyme, odd capitalisation and heavy use of which punctuation mark?

A) The dash

B) The semicolon

C) The exclamation mark

D) Parentheses

Answer · why

A) The dash

The dash is Dickinson's signature mark, standing in for commas and periods throughout her manuscripts; her 1890 editors regularised it to conventional...

Q 05/05

Poe's 'The Raven' was inspired partly by a talking raven in which Charles Dickens novel?

A) Oliver Twist

B) Bleak House

C) Barnaby Rudge

D) Hard Times

Answer · why

C) Barnaby Rudge

Barnaby Rudge features the talking raven Grip; in reviewing the novel, Poe argued that the bird's croakings should have been prophetic.