English Literature - Poetry and Poetic Devices: 17 MCQs with Answers
English Literature- Poetry and Poetic Devices
Questions on English poems, poets, figures of speech, prosody and poetic techniques prescribed in school and competitive syllabi.Your Progress
0%Q1. "Sonnet is a short poem of 14 lines that runs in iambic pentameter". What does 'iamb' mean in an iambic pentameter line ?
Right Answer: One unstressed syllable followed by stressed syllable
An iamb is the commonest metrical foot in English verse and consists of two syllables, the first unstressed and the second stressed, giving a rising rhythm often described as da-DUM. Pentameter means that the line contains five such feet, so an iambic pentameter line has ten syllables with stress falling on every second one. Shakespeare’s ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day’ is a standard illustration. Because this pattern closely resembles the natural cadence of spoken English, it became the staple metre of the sonnet, blank verse and much dramatic poetry.
Q2. Which of the following themes is central to the poem ?
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: The fleeting nature of beauty and enduring nature of true love.
W. B. Yeats’s ‘When You Are Old’ contrasts two kinds of love. Many admirers loved the woman’s ‘moments of glad grace’ and her physical beauty, an attachment that faded as her face changed with age. Only one man loved the ‘pilgrim soul’ in her and even the sorrows of her changing face, a love that outlasted her youth. The poem therefore turns on the fleeting nature of beauty set against the enduring nature of genuine love. Death is not its subject; the ageing of the woman is only the vantage point from which she is asked to look back.
Q3. Identify the figure of speech employed in the phrase "when you are old and grey".
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: Metonymy
In the phrase ‘when you are old and grey’ the word ‘grey’ names the colour of the hair, yet it is used to stand for the whole condition of old age. Naming a thing by one closely associated attribute in this way is metonymy. There is no contradiction in the phrase, so it is not an oxymoron; there is no reference to an external person, myth or event, so it is not an allusion; and no word is used with a double meaning, so it is not a pun. Yeats uses this compact image to open the poem with a picture of physical decline.
Q4. The poem's tone shifts between the stanzas. Which of the following best describes this shift ?
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: From loving to mournful
The first two stanzas are warm and affectionate. The speaker imagines the woman reading by the fire and remembering the soft look of her eyes, and he recalls how one man loved her pilgrim soul. The final stanza changes key: bending beside the glowing bars she is to murmur ‘a little sadly’ how Love fled, paced upon the mountains and hid his face amid a crowd of stars. The vocabulary of flight, hiding and remoteness makes the close elegiac. The movement is therefore from loving to mournful, not from hope to despair or from affection to resentment.
Q5. Which poetic technique is most prominent in the phrase "nodding by the fire" ?
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: Imagery
The phrase ‘nodding by the fire’ appeals directly to the reader’s senses and creates a picture of an old woman drowsing in the warmth of the hearth, her head dipping as sleep overtakes her. Language that works in this way, by making the reader see, hear or feel a scene, is called imagery. There is no repetition of initial consonant sounds, so alliteration is not the answer; no lifeless thing is given human qualities here, so it is not personification; and no implied comparison between two unlike things is made, so it is not a metaphor.
Q6. What does the "glowing bars" in the poem metaphorically represent ?
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: The hearth as a symbol of warmth.
The ‘glowing bars’ are the metal bars of the fireplace grate, glowing red with the fire behind them, and the woman bends towards them for warmth as she murmurs her memories. In the poem the hearth stands for comfort, intimacy and the settled quiet of old age, and it is the physical centre of the whole imagined scene. Reading the bars as prison bars of loneliness or as barriers around her heart forces a meaning the poem does not support, since the fire in the first stanza is already a picture of homely warmth rather than confinement.
Q7. Who is unrequited in love according to the poem ?
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: The poet himself.
The ‘one man’ who loved the pilgrim soul in the woman and even the sorrows of her changing face is the speaker himself. He asks her to recognise, in old age, the depth of a love she did not return, and the closing image of Love fleeing and hiding his face amid a crowd of stars records that loss. The poem is addressed to Maud Gonne, the Irish revolutionary whom Yeats loved and who repeatedly refused his proposals of marriage. It is therefore the poet whose love remains unrequited, not the woman or her other admirers.
Q8. Find out the synonym of the word 'pilgrim' from the given options :
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: Wayfarer
A pilgrim is a person who journeys to a sacred place, and by extension any traveller on a long and purposeful journey. ‘Wayfarer’, meaning one who travels on foot, is therefore the closest synonym among the options. When Yeats speaks of the ‘pilgrim soul’ he means the restless, questing, spiritually adventurous nature of the woman, which is what the speaker loved rather than her looks. A saint is a holy person rather than a traveller, a place of worship is a location and not a person, and an idolator is one who worships images.
Q9. Which of the following poetic devices is used most effectively to emphasize the melanchotic tone in the poem ?
Read the following poem and answer the question:
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;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Right Answer: Juxtaposition of youthful beauty and old age.
The melancholy of the poem grows out of a sustained contrast. Against the present picture of a woman old, grey and full of sleep, nodding by the fire, the poet sets the remembered beauty of eyes with a soft look, moments of glad grace and crowds of admirers. Placing these two states side by side is juxtaposition, and it makes the reader feel the distance travelled from youth to age. There is no exaggeration for effect, so hyperbole is ruled out; love is not compared to fire using ‘like’ or ‘as’; and no line openings are repeated.
Q10. "Now I hold creation in my foot" Of which poem the above line is an excerpt of ?
Right Answer: Hawk Roosting
The line is from Ted Hughes’s dramatic monologue ‘Hawk Roosting’, in which the bird itself speaks from the top of a wood. Boasting of its hooked head and hooked feet, its perfect kills and its refusal to allow any change, the hawk declares that it holds Creation in its foot. Through this arrogant voice Hughes explores raw natural power and, by extension, the mind of any absolute tyrant who identifies his own will with the order of the universe. The poem is written in free verse arranged in six regular quatrains.
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