What is the name of the oldest surviving epic poem?
Answer
The Epic of Gilgamesh
80 Poetry Trivia Questions with Answers
80 public questions with answers, drawn from the well. How many can you answer?
Poetry trivia travels from ancient epic traditions to modern American and African American literature. Questions cover foundational works, poetic forms, national traditions, major awards, and writers such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walt Whitman, and Ferdowsi. You may be asked to identify the oldest surviving epic poem, the author of The Canterbury Tales, or the poet behind Leaves of Grass.
The category also connects literary history across languages and centuries, including French symbolism, Persian epic poetry, and Nobel and Pulitzer milestones. It suits literature classes, book clubs, poetry societies, pub quizzes, and general-knowledge game nights. Some questions are approachable through famous titles, while others reward familiarity with literary movements, historical periods, and the achievements of poets from underrepresented traditions.
Which French poet wrote the prose poem collection 'A Season in Hell'?
Answer
Arthur Rimbaud
Which 14th-century English poet wrote 'The Canterbury Tales'?
Answer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Who was the first poet to win the Nobel Prize in Literature?
Answer
Sully Prudhomme
Which African American poet was the first to win the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry?
Answer
Gwendolyn Brooks
Which Persian poet wrote the epic poem 'Shahnameh'?
Answer
Ferdowsi
Which English poet wrote 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'?
Answer
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Which American poet is known for the collection 'Leaves of Grass'?
Answer
Walt Whitman
Which poet wrote 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'?
Answer
T.S. Eliot
Which poet wrote the collection "The Flowers of Evil"?
Answer
Charles Baudelaire
Which poet coined the term "sprung rhythm"?
Answer
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Who wrote the poem "She Walks in Beauty"?
Answer
Lord Byron
Which poet is known for the collection "The Prophet"?
Answer
Kahlil Gibran
Which English poet wrote the epic "Paradise Lost"?
Answer
John Milton
What is the name of the 19-line poetic form with two refrains?
Answer
Villanelle
Who wrote the poem "O Captain! My Captain!"?
Answer
Walt Whitman
Which American poet wrote "Still I Rise"?
Answer
Maya Angelou
Which American poet wrote the modernist epic 'The Bridge'?
Answer
Hart Crane
Which Nobel laureate wrote the epic poem 'Omeros'?
Answer
Derek Walcott
Which English poet wrote the sonnet sequence 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'?
Answer
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Who wrote the sonnet 'Ozymandias'?
Answer
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Which metaphysical poet wrote 'The Flea'?
Answer
John Donne
Who wrote the nonsense poem 'Jabberwocky'?
Answer
Lewis Carroll
Which Italian poet wrote the epic poem 'The Divine Comedy'?
Answer
Dante Alighieri
Which English poet wrote the ode 'The Wreck of the Deutschland'?
Answer
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Which poet wrote the long narrative poem 'Aurora Leigh'?
Answer
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Who coined the term 'negative capability'?
Answer
John Keats
Who wrote the mock-epic poem 'The Rape of the Lock'?
Answer
Alexander Pope
Who wrote the sonnet sequence 'Astrophil and Stella'?
Answer
Sir Philip Sidney
Who wrote 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol'?
Answer
Oscar Wilde
Which poet wrote the collection 'Songs of Innocence'?
Answer
William Blake
Who wrote the epic poem 'The Aeneid'?
Answer
Virgil
Which Greek Muse is associated with epic poetry?
Answer
Calliope
Which poet wrote 'The Duino Elegies'?
Answer
Rainer Maria Rilke
Which poet wrote 'The Cantos'?
Answer
Ezra Pound
Who wrote the poem 'Annabel Lee'?
Answer
Edgar Allan Poe
Who wrote the poem 'Sonnet 130'?
Answer
William Shakespeare
Who wrote the poem 'La Belle Dame sans Merci'?
Answer
John Keats
Who wrote the poem 'Ode to the West Wind'?
Answer
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Who wrote the poem 'Kubla Khan'?
Answer
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Who wrote the poem 'The New Colossus'?
Answer
Emma Lazarus
Poetry trivia — quick answers
What are good poetry trivia questions?
Good poetry trivia questions cover famous poems, collections, poets, languages, literary periods, forms, and awards. Examples include identifying the author of The Canterbury Tales, naming the epic poem Shahnameh, matching Leaves of Grass with Walt Whitman, and recognizing the first poet to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
How hard is poetry trivia?
Poetry trivia ranges from accessible to advanced. Readers may know famous titles such as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner or Leaves of Grass, while harder questions involve Persian and French literature, Nobel and Pulitzer history, ancient epics, and distinctions among poetic forms and movements.
What is the oldest surviving epic poem?
The Epic of Gilgamesh is generally regarded as the oldest surviving epic poem. Originating in ancient Mesopotamia, it was written in stages on clay tablets in Sumerian and Akkadian. The surviving versions tell of Gilgamesh, king of Uruk, and his friendship with Enkidu, along with themes of mortality and kingship.
Who wrote The Canterbury Tales?
Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, a late-14th-century collection of stories told by pilgrims traveling to Canterbury. Written primarily in Middle English, the work includes a wide range of voices, genres, and social perspectives, and is considered one of the major achievements of medieval English literature.
Who wrote Shahnameh?
The Persian poet Ferdowsi wrote Shahnameh, also called The Book of Kings. Completed around the turn of the 11th century, the epic recounts the mythical and historical past of Iran in Persian verse. It is one of the central works of Persian literature and a major source for Iranian cultural memory.