Name:
Date:
Poetry Quiz
Meter
I. MATCHING: Choose the correct definition for each term. (PLEASE write the letter
of your answer next to its corresponding number.)
(2 points each)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Iambic
Trochaic
Anapestic
Dactylic
Spondee
Blank verse
Free Verse
Caesura
Anacrusis
Catalexis
A. pause in place of unaccented syllable
B. DUMM DUMM
C. extra unaccented syllable at the beginning of a line
D. unrhymed iambic pentameter
E. de DUMM
F. extra unaccented syllable at the end of a line
G. DUMM de
H. DUMM de de
I. de dee DUMM
J. no rhyme; no meter pattern
II. DIRECTIONS: Use the technique of scansion to mark and divide the syllables for each
line of poetry below. You have been given the type of meter that each line of poetry
follows. (2 points each)
EXAMPLE: When I have fears that I may cease to be
11. But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?
(Iambic)
12. And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold.
(Anapestic)
13. Go and catch a falling star.
(Trochaic)
14. Take her up tenderly
(Dactylic)
III. MULTIPLE CHOICE: Choose the correct metric pattern for each example of poetry.
15. In summertime on Brendon
The bells they sound so clear;
Round both the shires they ring them
In steeples far and near,
A happy noise to hear.
--Housman
a. Iambic tetrameter
b. Iambic trimeter with catalexis
c. Dactylic dimeter
d. Anapestic tetrameter
Name:
Date:
16. Little Fly,
Thy Summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away
--Blake
a. Iambic dimeter
b. Trochaic trimeter
17. Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love,
c. Anapestic dimeter
d. Dactylic dimeter
--Shelly
a. Dactylic dimeter
b. Anapestic dimeter
18. Touch her not scornfully;
Think of her mournfully;
a. Trochaic tetrameter
b. Anapestic dimeter
c. Iambic trimeter
d. Trochaic trimeter with anacrusis
--Hood
c. Iambic trimeter with anacrusis
d. Dactylic dimeter
Continue
Name:
Date:
IV. DIRECTIONS: For each excerpt of poetry below, choose all the terms that apply.
Some quotations only require one answer choice; others may require several. (2 points each)
c.
d.
e.
f.
iambic
anapestic
dactylic
spondaic
g. trochaic
h. monometer
i. dimeter
j. trimeter
j.
k.
l.
m.
tetrameter
pentameterl.
hexameter
heptameter
n.
o.
p.
q.
octameter
blank verse
free verse
caesura
19. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.
20. T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house
21. In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree.
22. It looked extremely rocky for the Mudville nine that day.
23. And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
24. Silver bark of beech, and sallow
25. What good is he? Who else will harbor him
At his age for the little he can do?
What help he is there’s no depending on.
26. I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be blithe and
strong,
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off
work,
27. 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:
28. Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
29. Now this s the law of the jungle--as old and as true as the sky
30. When I have fears that I may cease to be
Name:
Date:
IV. DIRECTIONS: Read the poem below then write a paragraph explains how meter
effects the poem. (5 points)
Song of the Powers
Mine, said the stone,
Mine is the hour.
I crush the scissors
Such is my powers,
Stronger than wishes,
My power, alone.
Mine, said the paper,
Mine are the words
That smother the stone
With imagined birds,
Reams of them, flown
From the mind of the shaper.
Mine, said the scissors,
Mine all the knives
Gashing through the paper’s
Ethereal lives;
Nothing’s so proper
As tattering wishes.
As stone crushes scissors,
As paper snuffs stone
And scissors cut paper,
All end alone.
So heap up your paper
And scissor wishes
And uproot the stone
From the top of the hill.
They all end alone
As you will, as you will.
BONUSES:
1. What type of metrical pattern is the phrase severely momentous?
2. Write two lines of poetry about English class in iambic pentameter.
3. Write two lines of poetry about the cafeteria in dactyls (you may have as many
dactyls as you wish).