Q 01/05

In Yeats's early poem The Stolen Child, who lures the child away?

A) Mermaids

B) Faeries

C) A mysterious piper

D) A band of pirates

Answer · why

B) Faeries

Faeries: they coax the human child to come away with them, since the world, they say, holds more weeping than he can understand.

Q 02/05

Which county did Yeats regard as his childhood and spiritual home, his "country of the heart"?

A) Donegal

B) Sligo

C) Mayo

D) Kildare

Answer · why

B) Sligo

Sligo: his mother's wealthy Pollexfen family came from there, and he spent childhood holidays in the county.

Q 03/05

Which two conditions may explain Yeats's trouble with mathematics and languages at school?

A) Stammering and asthma

B) Epilepsy and colour blindness

C) Deafness and short sight

D) Tone deafness and dyslexia

Answer · why

D) Tone deafness and dyslexia

An early Godolphin School report called him "very poor in spelling" but he loved biology and zoology.

Q 04/05

In Yeats's poem Leda and the Swan, which god takes the form of the swan?

A) Apollo

B) Zeus

C) Poseidon

D) Hermes

Answer · why

B) Zeus

Zeus: the poem looks ahead to what the union sets off, the Trojan War and the death of Agamemnon.

Q 05/05

How many copies of Yeats's 1886 pamphlet Mosada were printed, paid for by his father?

A) 100

B) 250

C) 500

D) 1,000

Answer · why

A) 100

His first full collection followed in 1889.