Shakespeare's Sonnets By William Shakespeare Study Help Quiz

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1:  Sixteenth century love sonnets typically follow all but which of the following conventions?

a. A fair young lady is deeply in love with a man who's hesitant to court her.

b. Exaggerated language expresses the lover's adoration.

c. The speaker is a male lover.

d. The female object of attention and affection is beautiful and pure.
2:  The Fair Young Man to whom the poet speaks in Sonnets 1-126 demonstrates which of the following characteristics?

a. Allegiance to lower class society

b. An inner beauty that matches his physical appearance

c. Good looks leaning toward the female persuasion

d. A sense of inferiority
3:  Who was not among the candidates for the identity of the Dark Lady in Sonnets 127-152?

a. Shakespeare's wife, Ann Boleyn

b. Mary Fitton

c. A Negro prostitute

d. Lady Penelope Rich
4:  In Sonnet 130, Shakespeare pokes fun at which fellow poet?

a. Thomas Watson

b. Sir Sidney Lee

c. William Wordsworth

d. Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
5:  In Sonnets 76-86, Shakespeare refers to his Rival Poet as

a. "a finer spirit"

b. "the affable familiar ghost"

c. "a worthier pen"

d. "so great a sum of sums"
6:  The major theme that Shakespeare sets forth in the first 17 of his sonnets is that

a. poetry has the power to conquer time

b. love is the only faithful form of immortality

c. beauty and youth can be continued by producing progeny

d. everyone's lot in life is to suffer
7:  The sonnets in which Shakespeare says that the Fair Young Man more than makes up for the poet's failures in life are often referred to as the

a. compensation quatrains

b. despair sonnets

c. odes to immortality

d. passion poems
8:  The idea of one soul shared by two bodies finds a place in which of Shakespeare's sonnets?

a. Duality sonnets

b. Fusion sonnets

c. Sans separation sonnets

d. Absence sonnets
9:  The depiction of the Dark Lady ventures out of the strict Petrarchan tradition by

a. darkening all her physical features

b. suggesting that she has angular features

c. making her mood dark, rather than light and cheerful

d. portraying her complexion as pale, a sharp contrast against her black hair
10:  How many of Shakespeare's sonnets dwell on a religious theme?

a. 126

b. The first 17 and the last 17

c. Just 1

d. Every one of them
11:  The acting profession in Shakespeare's time was viewed as

a. an honorable profession undertaken only by members of high society

b. a nice part-time pastime for young ladies and gentlemen

c. a role no grander in status than that of a rogue or beggar

d. illegal and immoral
12:  Which of the following colors are not mentioned in Sonnet 12, 73, or 99?

a. Sable

b. b. Ashen

c. Berry blue

d. Sunset
13:  Which of the following lines demonstrates the use of alliteration?

a. Pity the world, or else this glutton be . . .

b. When to the sessions of sweet silent thought . . .

c. Kissing with golden face the meadows green . . .

d. If hairs be wires, black wires grown on her head . . .
14:  Which of these selections shows Shakespeare's concept of true love?

a. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. (Sonnet 18)

b. Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out to the edge of doom. (Sonnet 116)

c. Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend, And being frank she lends to those are free. (Sonnet 4)

d. Incapable of more, replete with you, my most true mind maketh mine eye untrue. (Sonnet 113)


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