Multiple Choice Questions and answers from Ode on a Grecian Urn

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#1

1. The speaker addresses the urn as all of the following EXCEPT:

(a) "Bride of quietness"
(b) "Foster-child of silence and slow time"
(c) "Sylvan historian"
(d) "Cold pastoral"
(e) "Attic shape"

Answer:

(c) "Sylvan historian"

2. What does the speaker envy about the figures on the urn?

(a) Their immortality
(b) Their beauty
(c) Their passionate love
(d) All of the above

Answer:

(d) All of the above

3. "Heard melodies are sweet, but unheard melodies are sweeter" implies that:

(a) Imagination is more powerful than reality.
(b) Music is best experienced in silence.
(c) The figures on the urn experience a deeper love than humans.
(d) Both A and C.

Answer:

(d) Both A and C.

4. The town emptied of its people is described as:

(a) Desolate and lonely
(b) Mysterious and intriguing
(c) Peaceful and serene
(d) Forgotten and lost

Answer:

(b) Mysterious and intriguing

5. The speaker's attitude towards the urn shifts throughout the poem. Which of the following best describes this shift?

(a) From admiration to disgust
(b) From awe to questioning
(c) From indifference to fascination
(d) From joy to sorrow

Answer:

(b) From awe to questioning

6. What is the "little town by river or seashore" on the urn?

(a) A real place the artist painted
(b) A fictional place from a myth
(c) Unknown – the poem doesn't specify
(d) A place the speaker has visited

Answer:

(c) Unknown – the poem doesn't specify

7. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" expresses the poem's central theme of:

(a) The subjective nature of beauty
(b) The power of art to transcend time
(c) The importance of living in the present moment
(d) The pursuit of knowledge

Answer:

(b) The power of art to transcend time

8. The repetition of questions in the second stanza serves to:

(a) Emphasize the speaker's curiosity
(b) Create a sense of mystery
(c) Highlight the limitations of human knowledge
(d) All of the above

Answer:

(d) All of the above

9. The boughs in the poem are described as:

(a) Happy
(b) Unhappy
(c) Evergreen
(d) Bare

Answer:

(c) Evergreen

10. What is the dominant emotion conveyed in the final two lines of the poem?

(a) Joy
(b) Sadness
(c) Ambiguity
(d) Anger

Answer:

(c) Ambiguity