Hard Inspiration from the Dead Poets Quiz / Test | Movies

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. Mr Keating, the English Literature teacher, says that the boys can call him "O Captain! my Captain!" This is a quote from which poet's work?

Answer: Walt Whitman

This is from Whitman's poem in praise of Abraham Lincoln, from the volume "Leaves of Grass". Whitman was born in 1819 in Long Island, and worked as a teacher and journalist, before having his poetry published.

2. At the beginning of Dead Poets Society meetings, a quote from author and Transcendental philosopher Henry David Thoreau is read out. "I came to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately... " From which work is it taken?

Answer: Walden

Thoreau abandoned the modern life of Massachusetts in the 1840s, and lived a frugal life in a log cabin near Walden Pond. His account of this was published as "Walden, or a Life in the Woods" although there is a popular misconception that the title is actually "On Walden Pond".

The other two titles are also by Thoreau. The movie quote slightly altered the word order, but the full quote was this: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

3. At the first meeting of the Dead Poets Society, Neil reads part of a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. "Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a ______ ______ " ?

Answer: newer world

This is from Tennyson's poem "Ulysses". The final lines echo the film's main message, that we are "made weak by time and fate, but strong in will / To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." It's also significant that it is Neil who reads this out, as the poem's quest for something better than life, beyond this world, mirrors Neil's eventual fate.

4. During their first lesson with Mr Keating, Pitts is asked to read out the first stanza of the poem "To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time". Which poet wrote this?

Answer: Robert Herrick

The four poets mentioned were all contemporaries. Herrick lived from 1591 to 1674, and wrote many interesting poems. Most of his works have simple and pretty rhyme schemes, and can sometimes sound a little trite and clich�d. However, on further reading, they do contain important messages. "To the Virgins..." is a classic message, commonly found in poetry and literature, encouraging the concept of "Carpe Diem" which is such a major feature of the movie.

5. "Teach me to love? Go teach thyself more wit. I chief professor am of it. The God of Love, if such a thing there be, may learn to love from me." This excerpt from "The Prophet" by Abraham Cowley was read aloud at a Dead Poets Society meeting by which of the boys?

Answer: Charlie Dalton

I think this reading proves that passion isn't a modern invention, and that despite a poem being written in the 17th Century, it can still be as relevant three hundred years later. Cowley's poems are ideal to read aloud, as they have a very natural and fresh feel to them.

6. Neil wins a leading role in a Shakespeare play, which angers his father so much that Neil is taken away from Welton Academy. Which play was it?

Answer: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Neil's final speech as Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, seemed to be delivered directly to his father in the auditorium: "If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. ... Gentles, do not reprehend; if you pardon, we will mend; ... So, goodnight unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends." Had this been a typical Hollywood film, Neil's father would have softened his attitude after hearing this speech, but alas, that was not to be.

7. This poem, "The Ballad of William Bloat" was read out at a meeting by Pitts. "In a mean abode on the Skankill Road, Lived a man named William Bloat; He had a wife, the bane of his life, Who continually got his goat. So one day at dawn, with her nightdress on He slit ______ ______ ______ . " Complete the final line.

Answer: her bloody throat

Charming! This is an old Irish song by Raymond Calvert, which can be sung to a tune called "Dawning of the Day" (also called "Raglan Road"). There are several slightly different versions, but all have at least five verses that go on to describe the murder in gruesome but comic detail.

It turns out she wasn't really dead, because the knife was made in England, and therefore of inferior quality!

8. Meeks reads a poem with a very rhythmic chorus, and the boys end up chanting together. Which river is mentioned in this verse?

Answer: Congo

"Then I saw the Congo creeping through the black, Cutting through the jungle with a golden track." This is from "The Congo" by Nicholas Vachel Lindsay, (1879-1931) and is a kind of play in verse, written to be performed by several voices. Note: in the movie, for some reason they replace the word "jungle" with "forest".

9. Which of the boys recites the first lines of Byron's "She walks in beauty like the night..." and Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"

Answer: Charlie Dalton

Charlie is trying to impress Gloria and Tina. The other boys initially scoff at him, but the girls, believing he wrote them himself, are impressed, and Charlie smugly tells them that "there's plenty more where that came from!"

10. When Todd was too shy and self-critical to write a poem to read in class, Mr Keating, using a quote from the poem "Song of Myself", persuaded him to demonstrate a "barbaric ________."

Answer: yawp

This is from Walt Whitman ("Uncle Walt", a favourite of Keating's) again. "I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

Source: Author Elanor

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor gtho4 before going online.
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Inspiration from the Dead Poets Quiz

Questions about the poetry and literature quoted in the movie "Dead Poets Society".

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