Fireside Poets Test

Question 1

1. Who wrote “The Builders”?
2. What writing style is it based on?
3. What structures are used as metaphors?

Answer 1

(1) Longfellow
(2) Based on extended metaphors.

(3) • architects = all men
• walls = time
• blocks = days
• house = life

Question 2

1. Who wrote “Paul Revere’s Ride”?

2. What is the synopsis?

Answer 2

(1) Longfellow
(2) Paul Revere warns the American colonists that the British are going to raid Lexington & Concord, Massachusetts, by lighting a lantern in the Old North Church.

Question 3

1. Who wrote “Loss and Gain”?

2. What are the important lines?

Answer 3

(1) Longfellow

2) “Defeat may be victory in disguise”
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.”
(Lines 11-12

Question 4

Who was the a Quaker poet, was an abolitionist and anti-transcendentalist, and had Snowbound as his greatest pastoral poem?

Answer 4

John Greenleaf Whittier

Question 5

1. Who wrote “The Book Our Mothers Read”?

2. What is the theme?

Answer 5

(1) Whittier

(2) Truth is not found in the world, but in God’s Word.

Question 6

1. Who wrote “The Lover’s Errand”?
2. What is the synopsis?
3. What are the important lines?

Answer 6

(1) Longfellow
(2) Miles Standish asks John Alden to propose for him to Priscilla Mullins, who is also loved by John.

(3) • “If I am not worth the wooing, I surely am
not worth the winning!” (Line 111)
• “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?”
(Line 154)

Question 7

1. Who wrote “Maud Muller”?

2. What are the important lines?

Answer 7

(1) Whittier

2) “For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these, ‘It might have been!’”
(Lines 105-106

Question 8

1. Who wrote Snowbound?

2. What is it most famous for?

Answer 8

(1) Whittier

(2) America’s greatest pastoral poem

Question 9

1. Who wrote “The Arrow and the Song”?

2. What is the theme?

Answer 9

(1) Longfellow

(2) The far reaching consequences of our actions.

Question 10

Who was a doctor, nicknamed Mr. Boston, and best known works are “The Deacon’s Masterpiece” and The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table?

Answer 10

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Question 11

1. Who wrote “The Village Blacksmith”?

2. What are the important lines?

Answer 11

(1) Longfellow

2) “Toiling-rejoicing-sorrowing,
Onward through life he goes,”
(Lines 37-38

Question 12

1. Who wrote “Old Ironsides”, which started his career?
2. What ship was saved by this poem?
3. What is the tone?

Answer 12

(1) Holmes
(2) U.S.S. Constitution
(3) Sarcastic

Question 13

Who was the most popular poet in the 19th century, and is the only American to have a bust in Westminster Abbey?

Answer 13

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Question 14

1. Who wrote “Hiawatha’s Wooing”?
2. What metaphors are used?
3. What tribe is Hiawatha from?
4. Who is Minnehaha and what does her name mean?
5. Who is Hiawatha’s grandmother?

Answer 14

(1) Longfellow
(2) Bow & Arrow = Man & Woman
(3) ? (Answer was whited out)
(4) Minnehaha was the Dakota Indian that Hiawatha loved; her name means Laughing Water.
(5) Nokomis

Question 15

1. Who wrote “The Height of the Ridiculous”?

2. What is the synopsis?

Answer 15

(1) Holmes
(2) A man wrote a comedic story that his servant read and laughed about for ten days, causing the author to stop writing comedy.

Question 16

Who is known as a master of Yankee dialect?

Answer 16

James Russell Lowell

Question 17

1. Who wrote “Fourth of July Ode”?

2. What are the important lines?

Answer 17

(1) Lowell

(2) "Our fathers fought for Liberty
        They struggled long and well
        History of their deeds can tell-
        But ourselves must set us free."
        (Lines 21-24)

Question 18

1. Who wrote “The Present Crisis”?

2. What are the important lines (theme)?

Answer 18

(1) Lowell

(2) “Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth and Falsehood, for the good or evil side.”
(Lines 1-2)

Question 19

1. Who wrote “The Courtin’”?

2. What writing style is it in?

Answer 19

(1) Lowell

(2) Yankee dialect

Question 20

1. Who wrote A Fable for Critics?

2. What is the synopsis?

Answer 20

(1) Lowell

(2) Lowell anonymously wrote off the faults of other authors, including himself.

Question 21

1. Who wrote “A Psalm of Life”?

2. What is the theme?

Answer 21

(1) Longfellow

(2) Leave a legacy for those after you.