Quiz

Sonnet 73

William Shakespeare

1. 1. Sonnet 73 belongs to which poetic form?

   A Petrarchan sonnet with an octave and sestetA Shakespearean sonnet with three quatrains and a coupletA Spenserian sonnet with interlocking rhymes throughoutA free-verse meditation structured in four stanzas

2. 2. Which of the following best identifies the speaker in Sonnet 73?

   An omniscient narrator observing two lovers from afarAn aging poet addressing a younger belovedA young lover lamenting the death of an older companionA personified figure of Death speaking to humanity

3. 3. The phrase 'bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang' is best understood as a metaphor for which of the following?

   The speaker's memories of choral music in his youthThe destroyed nave of a church emptied by the ReformationThe bare tree branches that once held singing birds, evoking lost vitalityThe beloved's silence after years of joyful conversation

4. 4. What is the dominant theme of Sonnet 73?

   The cruelty of time and the inevitability of death heighten the value of loveNature's seasonal cycles offer comfort and promise of renewalThe beloved's youth contrasts cruelly with the speaker's unworthinessPhysical decline can be transcended through the immortality of verse

5. 5. Shakespeare uses three central images in the poem. In what order do they appear?

   Fire, twilight, winter treeWinter tree, twilight, dying fireTwilight, dying fire, winter treeDying fire, winter tree, twilight

6. 6. The line 'Death's second self, that seals up all in rest' refers to which of the following?

   The beloved, who is the speaker's comfort in old ageSleep, which resembles death in its complete suspension of consciousnessAutumn, the season that precedes winter's final deathThe ashes left after the fire of youth has burned out

7. 7. In the third quatrain, the fire is described as being 'consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.' What does this paradox most likely represent?

   The beloved's love, which simultaneously sustains and overwhelms the speakerThe speaker's youth, which provided the fuel for life but is now the very thing burning him outThe passage of seasons, each of which destroys the one before itThe poem itself, which exhausts the poet even as it gives him purpose

8. 8. Which literary technique is most prominently employed across all three quatrains?

   Anaphora combined with extended metaphorDramatic irony sustained through an unreliable speakerEnjambment used to accelerate the poem's paceApostrophe directed at an abstraction such as Time or Death

9. 9. What is the overall tone of the poem's closing couplet?

   Bitter resignation, as the speaker accepts that love cannot survive deathParadoxical tenderness, urging the beloved to love more deeply because time is shortDesperate pleading, as the speaker begs the beloved not to abandon himDetached philosophical calm, as the speaker transcends his fear of death

10. 10. In the line 'That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,' the pronoun 'his' refers to which antecedent?

    The speaker, whose youth has long since passedThe fire, whose fuel has burned down to ashThe beloved, whose youth is implicitly contrasted with the speaker's ageDeath, whose power has smothered the speaker's vitality
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