Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Can you name the 20th century master of rhyme who penned the following familiar witty advice?
"Candy
is dandy
but liquor
is quicker."
2. One of poetry's most quoted couplets is this one by Alexander Pope:
"A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."
However, only the rhyme keeps most people remembering the second line, and few know the great couplet that follows. Which of the follow couplets is that?
3. Who wrote the following rhymes, and who did he want to return the love in his lines?
"When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;"
4. Robert Service loved to rhyme, was famous because of it, and made fun of his own rhyming. Can you finish his stanza?
"Oh, I was born a lyric babe
(That last word is a bore -
It's only rhyme is "astrolabe,"
Whose meaning I ignore.)
From cradlehood I lisped in numbers,
Made jingles even in my slumbers.
Said Ma: "He'll be a bard, I know it."
Said Pa: "let's hoe ___________." [sic]
5. One of England's most famous poets wrote "A Fit of Rhyme against Rhyme." Whose angry lines began with the following?
"Rhyme, the rack of finest wits,
That expresseth but by fits
True conceit,
Spoiling senses of their treasure,
Cozening judgment with a measure,
But false weight;
Wresting words from their true calling,
Propping verse for fear of falling
To the ground;
Jointing syllabes, drowning letters,
Fast'ning vowels as with fetters
They were bound!"
6. The poet who penned this opening stanza to "God's Grandeur" uses a lot of sound patterns in addition to the complex rhymes. Who was he?
"The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod."
7. "Masculine" and "feminine," when talking about rhymes, does NOT refer to meaning but to something about the rhyme itself. Which of the following famous Shakespeare couplets illustrates a feminine rhyme?
8. Even if you don't know the poem, your ear will probably recognize whose very famous voice is speaking these rhymes. Who wrote this opening?
"My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now."
9. "The Bells" is one of the most famous examples of rhyme in American literature. Its meter and other devices makes it onomatopoeic as well. Who wrote it? This excerpt should remind you of the answer (as well as of your high school English class).
"Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;"
10. This opening stanza to a twelve line song is by W. H. Auden. Auden, a real rhyme master, is doing something extremely unusual. What is remarkable about this song?
"That night when joy began
Our narrowest veins to flush,
We waited for the flash
Of morning's levelled gun."
Source: Author
NormanW5
This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor
agony before going online.
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