Famous First Lines Trivia Quiz

Answer: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

Prefaced with an epigraph from Dante's "Inferno", specifically the eighth circle of Hell (reserved for fraudsters), T.S. Eliot's poem begins romantically enough with "Let us go then, you and I / When the evening is spread out against the sky" but then quickly deviates.

The train of thought of the author is whimsically drawn in many directions, alternating quickly between utter trivialities and deep, philosophical thought before ending in the depressing "We have lingered in the chambers of the sea / By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown / Till human voices wake us, and we drown."

Answer: Howl

Allen Ginsberg's "Howl" is a poem in three parts, altogether of rather epic length. A complete reading usually takes between fifteen and twenty minutes, about half of that being the first part. It is known for quite crude language as well as sexual and drug references and has been banned or censored in multiple countries in the 1950s and 1960s.

The poem contains multiple biographical references as well as some direct or paraphrased quotes from works that influenced him.

Answer: Song of Myself

"Leaves of Grass" is Walt Whitman's collection of poetry, originally released in 1855 and rereleased and expanded many times until his death in 1892. The initial poem featuring the "Come, said my soul" opening line consists of nine lines in non-rhyming free meter. It is a reflection on death and what comes thereafter.

Answer: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer

Written by John Keats in 1816, "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" tells of his astonishment after reading Chapman's English translation of the works of the ancient Greek poet, Homer. Apparently George Chapman's translation was "earthy" and "vigorous", and kept Keats "shouting with delight".

Answer: Sonnet 18

William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, however, his "Sonnet 18", is one of his most famous. The speaker's beloved is compared to a summer day, however, the beloved is better. Not only that, but she will live forever through the words of the poem.

Answer: Daffodils

Written in 1804, "Daffodils" is the most famous work by William Wordsworth, frequently also known just by its opening line "I wandered lonely as a cloud". The original version of the poem omitted the second stanza of the final version published eleven years later and differed in a few word choices in the first and third. It is a typical romantic poem, associating pensive moods with quiet, beautiful scenes of nature.

Answer: The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" was published in 1845, at the high point of the author's productivity with regard to his mysterious and dark short fiction pieces. It is a narrative poem - essentially a story told in verse. It has a very similar mood to Poe's prose, evoking first wonder, then madness and finally darkness and the demonic world.

Answer: Sonnets from the Portuguese Number 43

"Sonnets from the Portuguese", a collection of 44 love sonnets written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning during the 1840s, were actually written to her husband (Robert Browning, no mean poet himself), who insisted she publish them because they were such superb poetry. To protect their relationship, she initially pretended to have translated them from another language (which was originally going to be Bosnian, for reasons best known to her).

Answer: Sea-Fever

First published in 1916, John Masefield's "Sea-Fever" is a reflection of the ever-present lure that draws sailors back to their ships over and over again. In spite of it having been written around the time of World War I, it draws back to the romantic time of great sailing ships.

The poem has been set to music several times, of which John Ireland's version for piano and solo voice is the most well-known.

Answer: The Road Not Taken

Published in 1916 by Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken" is typically misunderstood. In fact, Frost's own biographer wrote that the poem's narrator was "one who habitually wastes energy in regretting any choice made: belatedly but wistfully he sighs over the attractive alternative rejected." Frost said the poem was actually based on the life of his friend, Edward Thomas, who was "a person who, whichever road he went, would be sorry he didn't go the other."