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On His Having Arrived at the Age of Twenty-Three — GK Questions with Answers

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12 questions
  1. "How soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth" opens a sonnet by —
    1. Shakespeare
    2. John Milton
    3. John Donne
    4. William Wordsworth
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    Answer: (B) John Milton

    It is Milton’s sonnet on reaching the age of twenty-three.

  2. The form of this sonnet is —
    1. Shakespearean
    2. Spenserian
    3. Petrarchan
    4. Curtal
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    Answer: (C) Petrarchan

    Milton uses the Italian model — octave abbaabba, then a sestet.

  3. In the poem, "the subtle thief of youth" is —
    1. Death
    2. Time
    3. Ambition
    4. Sleep
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    Answer: (B) Time

    Time is personified as a thief who steals the years on his wing.

  4. "My late spring no bud or blossom shew’th" means that the poet —
    1. has fallen ill
    2. has produced no achievement yet
    3. dislikes the spring season
    4. has lost his faith
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    Answer: (B) has produced no achievement yet

    His youth is a plant that has not yet flowered — he has achieved nothing so far.

  5. Who is the "great Task-Master" in the final line?
    1. The King
    2. His father
    3. God
    4. Time
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    Answer: (C) God

    Milton means God, who appoints the work and watches how it is done.

  6. The turn in the sonnet occurs at —
    1. line 5
    2. line 9
    3. line 12
    4. line 13
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    Answer: (B) line 9

    In a Petrarchan sonnet the turn falls at line 9, between octave and sestet.

  7. The mood of the octave is one of —
    1. joy
    2. anxiety
    3. anger
    4. indifference
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    Answer: (B) anxiety

    The octave is full of anxiety about time lost and nothing accomplished.

  8. How does the poem finally resolve the poet’s anxiety?
    1. By deciding to write faster
    2. By accepting that his pace is God’s measure
    3. By blaming his teachers
    4. By giving up poetry
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    Answer: (B) By accepting that his pace is God’s measure

    He accepts that his progress exactly matches the lot God has appointed for him.

  9. Which later sonnet by Milton is closest in theme to this one?
    1. On the Late Massacre in Piedmont
    2. On His Blindness
    3. To the Lord General Cromwell
    4. On Shakespeare
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    Answer: (B) On His Blindness

    On His Blindness moves the same way — anxiety about unused gifts, then submission.

  10. "Inward ripeness" in the poem refers to —
    1. physical growth
    2. inner maturity
    3. financial success
    4. religious conversion
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    Answer: (B) inner maturity

    He means his inner maturity, which he feels is less than his appearance suggests.

  11. A "Miltonic sonnet" is best described as —
    1. a sonnet with fifteen lines
    2. a Petrarchan sonnet on serious themes, often with no sharp break at line 8
    3. a sonnet ending in a couplet
    4. an unrhymed sonnet
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    Answer: (B) a Petrarchan sonnet on serious themes, often with no sharp break at line 8

    Milton kept the Italian form but widened its subjects and often ran the sense past the octave.

  12. Milton’s epic Paradise Lost is written in —
    1. heroic couplets
    2. blank verse
    3. terza rima
    4. Spenserian stanzas
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    Answer: (B) blank verse

    Unrhymed iambic pentameter — blank verse.

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