A Thing of Beauty — GK Questions with Answers

1. "A thing of beauty is a joy for ever" is the opening line of —
   1. Ode on a Grecian Urn
   2. Endymion
   3. Hyperion
   4. The Eve of St. Agnes
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) Endymion

   It opens Book I of Endymion (1818), though it is usually printed on its own.

2. According to the poem, the loveliness of a thing of beauty —
   1. fades slowly with time
   2. increases and never passes into nothingness
   3. depends on who is looking
   4. lasts only one season
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) increases and never passes into nothingness

   Keats says its loveliness increases and it will never pass into nothingness.

3. The "flowery band" in the poem binds us to —
   1. our friends
   2. the earth
   3. the past
   4. heaven
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) the earth

   Every day we weave a band of beauty to bind us to the earth — that is, to keep us attached to life.

4. The word "pall" in the poem means —
   1. a bright light
   2. a cloth spread over a coffin
   3. a heavy rain
   4. a kind of flower
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) a cloth spread over a coffin

   A pall is the dark cloth over a coffin, so beauty lifts a funeral gloom from the mind.

5. Which of these is NOT listed as a source of beauty in the poem?
   1. The sun and the moon
   2. Daffodils
   3. Musk-rose blooms
   4. The song of the nightingale
   Show answer

   Answer: (D) The song of the nightingale

   The nightingale belongs to a different Keats poem. This passage lists sun, moon, trees, daffodils, rills, the forest brake and tales.

6. "Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon / For simple sheep" — a "boon" here is a —
   1. burden
   2. gift
   3. shelter from rain
   4. kind of fruit
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) gift

   A boon is a gift or blessing; here, the gift of shade.

7. The poem is written in —
   1. blank verse
   2. rhymed couplets
   3. Spenserian stanzas
   4. terza rima
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) rhymed couplets

   Rhymed couplets of iambic pentameter, but open and enjambed rather than closed.

8. Who was Endymion in Greek myth?
   1. A king of Troy
   2. A shepherd loved by the moon goddess
   3. A river god
   4. A blind prophet
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) A shepherd loved by the moon goddess

   He was the beautiful shepherd of Mount Latmos whom the moon goddess loved.

9. The final image of the passage compares beauty to —
   1. a burning star
   2. an endless fountain of immortal drink
   3. a quiet bower
   4. a flowery band
   Show answer

   Answer: (B) an endless fountain of immortal drink

   Beauty is an endless fountain of immortal drink, pouring from heaven’s brink.

10. The griefs that Keats lists include —
    1. war and famine
    2. despondence and the dearth of noble natures
    3. poverty and disease
    4. exile and imprisonment
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) despondence and the dearth of noble natures

    He names despondence, the inhuman dearth of noble natures, gloomy days and darkened ways.

11. Keats dedicated Endymion to the memory of —
    1. Lord Byron
    2. Thomas Chatterton
    3. Leigh Hunt
    4. P. B. Shelley
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) Thomas Chatterton

    He dedicated it to Thomas Chatterton, the boy-poet who died at seventeen.

12. What does the poem claim beauty does about human suffering?
    1. It removes suffering completely
    2. It makes suffering bearable
    3. It explains why we suffer
    4. It punishes those who suffer
    Show answer

    Answer: (B) It makes suffering bearable

    Keats does not deny the griefs; he says a shape of beauty lifts the pall, making them bearable.

More chapters in this subject

• The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock12 questions
• Night of the Scorpion12 questions
• My Mother at Sixty-Six12 questions
• The Bus12 questions
• On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-Three12 questions
• Keeping Quiet12 questions