It Was the Best of Rhymes Trivia Quiz

Answer: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"

"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", first published in 1798 as part of "Lyrical Ballads" - the volume of ground-breaking Romantic poetry by Coleridge and his friend William Wordsworth - is one of the most famous poems in the English language, and probably in the history of Western literature.

As such, it has inspired great art (Gustave Doré's illustrations), music (a 13-minute epic song by Iron Maiden) and other literary works. These lines are found at the end of Part II, when things start getting difficult for the ship and its crew after the Mariner's sacrilegious act of shooting an albatross, a bird of good omen.

Answer: William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"

Written in 1919 and published in 1921, in the aftermath of WWI, when unrest was already spreading again throughout Europe, "The Second Coming" is one of W.B. Yeats' best-known works. It is filled with powerful imagery taken from Christian tradition, which perfectly captures the state of moral uncertainty, intolerance and lurking violence that would lead the world to another global war less than two decades later.

The quote "things fall apart" has been used in many other later works, such as Chinua Achebe's 1958 novel of the same title.

Answer: Thomas Stearns Eliot, "The Waste Land"

These are the opening lines of T.S. Eliot's five-part poem "The Waste Land", published in 1922. Loosely based on the medieval legend of the Holy Grail and the Fisher King, and packed with references to both Western and Eastern culture, "The Waste Land" is considered one of the central works of modernist poetry. Though it is undeniably obscure and makes for difficult reading, its imagery and language (shifting from satire to an almost prophetic tone) are striking and deeply fascinating.

Answer: John Keats, "Ode to a Nightingale"

John Keats wrote this poem in the spring of 1819, in a garden near his house in Hampstead (London), where a nightingale had built its nest. The bird's lovely song inspired him to write this composition, one of his most famous works, which explores the themes of nature, transience and mortality.

The latter topic was quite relevant to the poet's own experience, as he suffered from tuberculosis and died in Rome only two years later, at the young age of 25.

Answer: Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias"

Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias" (first published in 1818) is a reflection on the ravages of time and the ephemeral nature of human power and glory - represented by the crumbling statue of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II (Ozymandias was his Greek name).

Shelley was inspired to write his poem by the British Museum's acquisition of a large fragment of a statue of the pharaoh, dating from the 13th century BC.

Answer: Wilfred Owen, "Dulce et Decorum Est"

Taking its title from a quote by Latin poet Horace (meaning "it is a sweet and honourable thing") "Dulce et Decorum Est" - written in October 1917, and published posthumously in 1920 - describes a gas attack against a group of British soldiers during WWI.

The effects of the gas on a soldier who is unable to put on his mask in time are conveyed by deeply disturbing imagery, and the poem ends by calling the original Latin quote ("dulce et decorum est pro patria mori", it is sweet and honourable to die for one's own country) a lie, in a powerful condemnation of war. Wilfred Owen, one of the English war poets, was killed in action on 4 November 1918, a few days before the armistice that put an end to the war.

Answer: William Blake, "The Tyger"

Included in William Blake's "Songs of Experience" (1794), "The Tyger" is the sister poem to "The Lamb" in "Songs of Innocence" (1786). Using striking imagery, the poet contrasts beauty and ferocity, and wonders about the contrary nature of things and the duality of creation. Like some of the poems mentioned in this quiz, "The Tyger" has inspired a number of later works in various artistic field, and has been called the most anthologized poem in English literature.

Answer: W.H. Auden, "Funeral Blues"

Also known as "Stop All the Clocks", W.H. Auden's "Funeral Blues" was published in two versions. The first version, of five stanzas, was written and published in 1936, and was meant as a satirical mourning piece for a political leader: the second (one stanza shorter) was written in 1938 to be sung by soprano Hedli Anderson in a setting by composer Benjamin Britten.

The poem became known to a wider audience after being featured in the poignant funeral scene of the 1994 British film "Four Weddings and a Funeral".

Answer: Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Pied Beauty"

"Pied Beauty" was written in 1877 by English poet and Catholic priest Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) in the curtal sonnet (11 lines instead of 14) form invented by the poet himself. Through vivid imagery and his skillful use of sprung rhythm, Hopkins praises the varied beauty of nature and, at the same time, emphasizes God's immutability.

Answer: Ted Hughes, "Hawk Roosting"

Included in Ted Hughes' 1960 collection "Lupercal", "Hawk Roosting", like most other poems in the collection, presents a powerful image from nature - a predatory bird depicted as an amoral tyrant before which all other creatures have to bow. The poem has also been interpreted as an allegory of the dangers of excessive patriotism. Hughes (1930-1998), known for his short-lived marriage to American poet Sylvia Plath, was appointed Poet Laureate in 1984.