Contexts of Poetry

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AP English Literature and Composition › Contexts of Poetry

Questions 1 - 10
1

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Who is the author of this poem?

William Blake

William Cowper

John Keats

Christina Rossetti

Matthew Arnold

Explanation

This is “The Tyger,” one of the best known poems by the English poet William Blake (1757-1827).

William Cowper wrote John Gilpin (1782), John Keats wrote Poems (1816), Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862), and Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852).

Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).

2

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Who is the author of this poem?

William Blake

William Cowper

John Keats

Christina Rossetti

Matthew Arnold

Explanation

This is “The Tyger,” one of the best known poems by the English poet William Blake (1757-1827).

William Cowper wrote John Gilpin (1782), John Keats wrote Poems (1816), Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862), and Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852).

Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).

3

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Who is the author of this poem?

William Blake

William Cowper

John Keats

Christina Rossetti

Matthew Arnold

Explanation

This is “The Tyger,” one of the best known poems by the English poet William Blake (1757-1827).

William Cowper wrote John Gilpin (1782), John Keats wrote Poems (1816), Christina Rossetti wrote Goblin Market (1862), and Matthew Arnold wrote Empedocles on Etna, and Other Poems (1852).

Passage adapted from William Blake’s Songs of Experience (1794).

4

In pious times, e’r Priest-craft did begin,

Before Polygamy was made a Sin;

When Man on many multipli’d his kind,

E’r one to one was cursedly confin’d,

When Nature prompted and no Law deni’d

Promiscuous Use of Concubine and Bride;

Then Israel’s Monarch, after Heavens own heart,

His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart

To Wives and Slaves: And, wide as his Command,

Scatter’d his Maker’s Image through the Land.

Who is the author of this poem?

John Dryden

Sir William Davenant

John Milton

Thomas Shadwell

Edmund Spenser

Explanation

These are the opening lines of John Dryden’s political allegory Absalom and Achitophel, a book-length poem concerning the rebellion of Absalom against the Biblical King David.

Passage adapted from John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

5

Who is the author of “The Man-Moth”?

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Gaskell

Sylvia Plath

Amy Lowell

Frank O’Hara

Explanation

Inspired by a newspaper misprint, “The Man-Moth” (1946) is a poem by the U.S. Poet Laureate Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979).

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Sylvia's Lovers (1863), Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar (1963), Amy Lowell wrote Ballads for Sale (1927), and Frank O’Hara wrote Oranges: 12 pastorals (1953).

6

Who is the author of “The Man-Moth”?

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Gaskell

Sylvia Plath

Amy Lowell

Frank O’Hara

Explanation

Inspired by a newspaper misprint, “The Man-Moth” (1946) is a poem by the U.S. Poet Laureate Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979).

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Sylvia's Lovers (1863), Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar (1963), Amy Lowell wrote Ballads for Sale (1927), and Frank O’Hara wrote Oranges: 12 pastorals (1953).

7

In pious times, e’r Priest-craft did begin,

Before Polygamy was made a Sin;

When Man on many multipli’d his kind,

E’r one to one was cursedly confin’d,

When Nature prompted and no Law deni’d

Promiscuous Use of Concubine and Bride;

Then Israel’s Monarch, after Heavens own heart,

His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart

To Wives and Slaves: And, wide as his Command,

Scatter’d his Maker’s Image through the Land.

Who is the author of this poem?

John Dryden

Sir William Davenant

John Milton

Thomas Shadwell

Edmund Spenser

Explanation

These are the opening lines of John Dryden’s political allegory Absalom and Achitophel, a book-length poem concerning the rebellion of Absalom against the Biblical King David.

Passage adapted from John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

8

In pious times, e’r Priest-craft did begin,

Before Polygamy was made a Sin;

When Man on many multipli’d his kind,

E’r one to one was cursedly confin’d,

When Nature prompted and no Law deni’d

Promiscuous Use of Concubine and Bride;

Then Israel’s Monarch, after Heavens own heart,

His vigorous warmth did, variously, impart

To Wives and Slaves: And, wide as his Command,

Scatter’d his Maker’s Image through the Land.

Who is the author of this poem?

John Dryden

Sir William Davenant

John Milton

Thomas Shadwell

Edmund Spenser

Explanation

These are the opening lines of John Dryden’s political allegory Absalom and Achitophel, a book-length poem concerning the rebellion of Absalom against the Biblical King David.

Passage adapted from John Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel (1681)

9

Who is the author of “The Man-Moth”?

Elizabeth Bishop

Elizabeth Gaskell

Sylvia Plath

Amy Lowell

Frank O’Hara

Explanation

Inspired by a newspaper misprint, “The Man-Moth” (1946) is a poem by the U.S. Poet Laureate Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979).

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Sylvia's Lovers (1863), Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar (1963), Amy Lowell wrote Ballads for Sale (1927), and Frank O’Hara wrote Oranges: 12 pastorals (1953).

10

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,

Sylvan historian, who canst thus express

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape

Of deities or mortals, or of both,

In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

The author of this poem wrote all but which of the following works?

Prelude

Lamia

Endymion

Hyperion

“Ode to a Nightingale”

Explanation

The Prelude (1850)is a semi-autobiographical work by William Wordsworth. Lamia (1820), Endymion (1818), Hyperion (1819, unfinished), and “Ode to a Nightingale” (1819) are all works by John Keats.

Passage adapted from John Keats’ “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1820).

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