Poetry Quiz
Try out this Poetry quiz to test your knowledge. Poetry trivia explores one of literature’s oldest and most enduring art forms, from epic and sonnet traditions to modern free verse.
15 questions
~3 min to finish
Easy to hard difficulty
510 pts max score
Question 1 · Hard · 40 pts
In what language does Chaucer open "The Canterbury Tales" with the famous phrase "Whan that Aprille..."?
Question 2 · Hard · 40 pts
What is the manuscript designation of the sole surviving copy of "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"?
Question 3 · Hard · 40 pts
Which two poets jointly authored "Lyrical Ballads"?
Question 4 · Hard · 40 pts
Which rhyme pattern identifies terza rima?
Question 5 · Hard · 40 pts
Ottava rima is defined by what stanza length?
Question 6 · Hard · 40 pts
The Homeric epics are composed in which meter?
Question 7 · Hard · 40 pts
What is the primary verse mode of the Old English poem "Beowulf"?
Question 8 · Hard · 40 pts
Milton kicks off "Paradise Lost" by invoking whom or what?
Question 9 · Hard · 40 pts
Into what two parts does the Petrarchan sonnet typically divide?
Question 10 · Hard · 40 pts
Which rhyme scheme is standard for the Shakespearean sonnet?
Question 11 · Hard · 40 pts
A heroic couplet is written in what meter-and-rhyme combination?
Question 12 · Hard · 40 pts
If someone in a poetry seminar says just "Decorum Est," which Wilfred Owen poem are they shortening?
Question 13 · Easy · 10 pts
Who wrote the poem "The Raven"?
Question 14 · Easy · 10 pts
"Ode to a Nightingale" was written by which poet?
Question 15 · Easy · 10 pts
Allen Ginsberg is strongly associated with what literary movement?