MCQ ON JOHN KEATS' ODE TO THE WESTWIND

MCQ ON JOHN KEATS' ODE TO THE WESTWIND. These poems are part of the syllabus of various boards and universities. W.B SLST 2025 also makes its appear in its IX-X syllabus. It is designed to help students prepare for the exam. Its almost complete MCQ practice set on JOHN KEATS' ODE TO THE WESTWIND with answers. It is a free set of MCQ on JOHN KEATS' ODE TO THE WESTWIND with answers. 

1. Keats wrote "Ode to the West Wind" during which critical period of his life?
   a) During his medical training
   b) While traveling in Italy
   c) The "Great Year" of 1819
   d) After meeting Shelley
   Answer: c) The "Great Year" of 1819 (Trick: Shelley wrote "Ode to the West Wind"; this question tests attention to authorship.)

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3. The poem’s terza rima structure is borrowed from:
   a) Petrarchan sonnets
   b) Dante’s Divine Comedy
   c) Spenserian stanzas
   d) Miltonic blank verse
   Answer: b) Dante’s Divine Comedy

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5. Keats’ odes are primarily concerned with:
   a) Political revolution
   b) The interplay of mortality and immortality
   c) Nature’s cruelty
   d) Religious dogma
   Answer: b) The interplay of mortality and immortality (Contrast with Shelley’s focus on revolution.)

4. "Thou dirge / Of the dying year" employs which TWO literary devices?
   a) Metaphor and personification
   b) Alliteration and synecdoche
   c) Apostrophe and onomatopoeia
   d) Simile and metonymy
   Answer: a) Metaphor and personification

5. 
   

6. The "Pestilence-stricken multitudes" symbolize:
   a) Victims of the Black Death
   b) Fallen leaves and human mortality
   c) Political refugees
   d) Scattered seeds of rebellion
   Answer: b) Fallen leaves and human mortality

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8. In Stanza IV, the poet’s plea to be a "lyre" signifies:
   a) A desire for passive artistic inspiration
   b) A rejection of Romantic individualism
   c) A fusion with natural forces
   d) An allusion to Orpheus
   Answer: c) A fusion with natural forces

7. The shift from imperative verbs to subjunctive mood in Stanza V reflects:
   a) Resignation to fate
   b) A desperate invocation
   c) Logical argumentation
   d) Ironic detachment
   Answer: b) A desperate invocation

8. 
   

9. The rhyme scheme’s interruption in the final couplet (EE) serves to:
   a) Mimic the wind’s abrupt force
   b) Resolve the ode’s tension
   c) Undermine the poem’s optimism
   d) Echo Shakespearean sonnets
   Answer: b) Resolve the ode’s tension

9. The "trumpet of a prophecy" alludes to:
   a) The Book of Revelation
   b) Milton’s Paradise Lost
   c) Both a and b
   d) Wordsworth’s Prelude
   Answer: c) Both a and b

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11. Keats’ treatment of the wind differs from Shelley’s in its emphasis on:
    a) Apocalyptic transformation
    b) Personal aesthetic sublimity
    c) Democratic ideals
    d) Scientific precision
    Answer: b) Personal aesthetic sublimity

11. Unlike Coleridge’s Dejection: An Ode, Keats’ ode:
    a) Rejects nature’s consolations
    b) Celebrates the mind’s creative power
    c) Uses nature as a metaphor for artistic struggle
    d) Avoids autobiographical references
    Answer: c) Uses nature as a metaphor for artistic struggle

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13. The wind’s dual role as "Destroyer and Preserver" parallels which Hegelian concept?
    a) Dialectical materialism
    b) The sublime
    c) Thesis-antithesis-synthesis
    d) Weltgeist
    Answer: c) Thesis-antithesis-synthesis

13. Harold Bloom interprets the final line as Keats’:
    a) Irony about poetic legacy
    b) Sublimation of death anxiety
    c) Rejection of Romantic idealism
    d) Parody of Wordsworth
    Answer: b) Sublimation of death anxiety

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15. New Historicist readings of the ode focus on its:
    a) Engagement with the Peterloo Massacre
    b) Reflection of Keats’ medical training
    c) Critique of industrialization
    d) All of the above
    Answer: d) All of the above

Stanza I: The Wind’s Destructive Force

1. "Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead / Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing" employs which TWO literary devices?
   a) Simile and alliteration
   b) Personification and paradox
   c) Metaphor and synecdoche
   d) Apostrophe and simile
   Answer: d) Apostrophe and simile (Apostrophe: addressing the wind; simile: "like ghosts")

2. 
   

3. The "Pestilence-stricken multitudes" most ambiguously suggests:
   a) Victims of the Black Death
   b) Fallen leaves as symbols of human mortality
   c) Political revolutionaries
   d) Scattered seeds of poetic inspiration
   Answer: b) Fallen leaves as symbols of human mortality (Trick: "multitudes" implies human crowds, but context favors leaves.)

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5. "Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red" evokes:
   a) Seasonal decay and disease
   b) Racial diversity
   c) Heraldic imagery
   d) The French Revolution’s flag
   Answer: a) Seasonal decay and disease ("Hectic red" suggests feverish decline.)

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Stanza II: The Wind’s Aerial Power

4. The "azure sister of the Spring" likely refers to:
   a) The East Wind
   b) A gentle spring breeze
   c) The moon
   d) The Mediterranean sirocco
   Answer: a) The East Wind (Debated: "sister" implies another wind, not spring itself.)

5. 
   

6. "Angels of rain and lightning" ambiguously suggests:
   a) Divine messengers of destruction
   b) Cumulonimbus clouds
   c) Poetic inspiration
   d) All of the above
   Answer: d) All of the above (Open to mythological, meteorological, and artistic readings.)

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8. "The locks of the approaching storm" uses hair imagery to symbolize:
   a) Chaos and untamed nature
   b) The poet’s disheveled thoughts
   c) Biblical Samson’s strength
   d) The wind’s invisibility
   Answer: a) Chaos and untamed nature (Personification of storm as a wild being.)

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Stanza III: The Mediterranean & Sea Imagery

7. The "blue Mediterranean" is described as "lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams" to highlight:
   a) The sea’s false tranquility before the wind’s arrival
   b) A reference to classical mythology
   c) Keats’ Hellenistic idealism
   d) The poet’s nostalgia for Italy
   Answer: a) The sea’s false tranquility (The wind disrupts this calm, revealing latent power.)

8. 
   

9. "Old palaces and towers" submerged in the sea symbolize:
   a) Lost civilizations
   b) The ephemerality of human power
   c) Atlantis myths
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Ambiguity between historical and mythical decay.)

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11. "Quivering within the wave’s intenser day" suggests:
    a) Refracted light underwater
    b) The poet’s trembling inspiration
    c) Political unrest beneath surface calm
    d) A scientific observation of optics
    Answer: b) The poet’s trembling inspiration (Metaphor for creative vulnerability.)

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Stanza IV: The Poet’s Personal Plea

10. "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" echoes:
    a) Christ’s crucifixion
    b) The martyrdom of Adonais
    c) Keats’ own illness
    d) All of the above
    Answer: d) All of the above (Layered religious, mythological, and biographical pain.)

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12. The poet’s wish to be a "lyre" for the wind implies:
    a) Passive submission to nature
    b) A Shelleyan instrument of revolution
    c) Keats’ rejection of egotism
    d) Both a and c
    Answer: d) Both a and c (Contrast with Shelley’s assertive "trumpet.")

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14. "A heavy weight of hours" critiques:
    a) The burden of mortality
    b) Writer’s block
    c) Political oppression
    d) Industrial timekeeping
    Answer: a) The burden of mortality (Key Romantic theme in Keats.)

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Stanza V: The Prophetic Conclusion

13. "Drive my dead thoughts over the universe" equates poetic creation with:
    a) Agricultural sowing
    b) Funeral rites
    c) Revolutionary pamphleteering
    d) All of the above
    Answer: d) All of the above (Seeds, ashes, and words as generative debris.)

14. 
    

15. The "trumpet of a prophecy" alludes to:
    a) The Book of Revelation
    b) Milton’s Paradise Lost
    c) Both a and b
    d) Wordsworth’s Prelude
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Apocalyptic and epic traditions.)

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17. "If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" is ironic because:
    a) It ignores Keats’ impending death
    b) Spring’s arrival is uncertain
    c) It contradicts the ode’s despair
    d) It plagiarizes Shelley’s Ode
    Answer: a) It ignores Keats’ impending death (Biographical irony: Keats died in winter 1821.)

16. The "winged seeds" in Stanza II are paradoxical because they:
    a) Represent death and rebirth simultaneously
    b) Are compared to corpses and living things
    c) Symbolize failed revolutions
    d) Both a and b
    Answer: d) Both a and b (Central Keatsian paradox.)

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18. "Thou dirge / Of the dying year" conflates:
    a) Music and mortality
    b) Seasonality and eternity
    c) The poet’s voice and the wind’s
    d) All of the above
    Answer: d) All of the above (Dirge = lament for the dead; "dying year" = cyclical time.)

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20. The poem’s terza rima structure is disrupted in the final couplet to:
    a) Mimic the wind’s abrupt cessation
    b) Undermine the prophecy’s hope
    c) Echo Shakespearean sonnets
    d) Assert poetic control
    Answer: a) Mimic the wind’s abrupt cessation (Form mirrors content.)

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22. Keats’ reference to "Maenad" in Stanza I invokes:
    a) Dionysian frenzy
    b) Feminist critique
    c) Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound
    d) A misattributed myth
    Answer: a) Dionysian frenzy (The wind as a chaotic, divine force.)

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24. The ode’s final question is rhetorically ineffective because:
    a) It admits doubt
    b) Nature’s cycles are indifferent to human hope
    c) It contradicts Stanza IV’s despair
    d) All of the above
    Answer: b) Nature’s cycles are indifferent to human hope (Dark Romantic reading.)

1. "Destroyer and Preserver" is a paradox because the West Wind:
   a) Kills leaves but spreads seeds
   b) Silences the poet yet inspires him
   c) Symbolizes death and political revolution
   d) Both a and c
   Answer: d) Both a and c (Key Keatsian duality: natural cycles + Shelleyan subtext.)

2. 
   

3. "Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere" combines:
   a) Apostrophe and paradox
   b) Personification and oxymoron
   c) Allusion and metonymy
   d) Synecdoche and irony
   Answer: a) Apostrophe and paradox (Addressing the wind as both "wild" and divine.)

4. 
   

5. "Hectic red" in Stanza I is oxymoronic because it suggests:
   a) Healthy vigor in decay
   b) Feverish vitality in dying leaves
   c) Political violence in nature
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Medical and natural irony.)

4. "Thy voice" (Stanza IV) uses metonymy to represent:
   a) The wind’s sound
   b) The poet’s unspoken words
   c) Revolutionary ideals
   d) All of the above
   Answer: d) All of the above (Voice = wind’s force, poetry, or political message.)

5. 
   

6. "The tumult of thy mighty harmonies" (Stanza V) employs synecdoche by:
   a) Reducing the wind to sound
   b) Equating music with chaos
   c) Using "harmonies" for the wind’s full power
   d) Both a and c
   Answer: c) Using "harmonies" for the wind’s full power (Part for whole.)

7. 
   

8. "Loose clouds like earth’s decaying leaves" (Stanza II) uses metonymy to connect:
   a) Sky and soil
   b) Life and death
   c) Revolution and decay
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Clouds/leaves as symbols of cyclical destruction.)

7. The poem opens with apostrophe to:
   a) Anthropomorphize the wind
   b) Highlight the poet’s solitude
   c) Mimic classical odes
   d) All of the above
   Answer: d) All of the above (Direct address serves multiple functions.)

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9. "Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams / The blue Mediterranean" personifies the sea as:
   a) A sleeping giant
   b) A victim of the wind
   c) A mythological deity
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Passive vulnerability + epic scale.)

9. "Like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing" (Stanza I) is a simile that:
   a) Equates leaves with supernatural fear
   b) Implies the wind is a malevolent sorcerer
   c) Both a and b
   d) Neither
   Answer: c) Both a and b (Ambiguous agency: wind as enchanter or exorcist?)

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11. "The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low" (Stanza II) metaphorically suggests:
    a) Buried potential
    b) Fallen soldiers
    c) Aborted revolutions
    d) All of the above
    Answer: d) All of the above (Seeds = multivalent Romantic symbol.)

11. "Maenad" (Stanza I) alludes to:
    a) Dionysian ecstasy
    b) Feminine destructive power
    c) Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound
    d) Both a and b
    Answer: d) Both a and b (Wind as both creative and violent force.)

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13. The final line’s rhetorical question is ironic because:
    a) Keats died before spring
    b) Nature’s cycles ignore human suffering
    c) It contradicts the poem’s despair
    d) Both a and b
    Answer: d) Both a and b (Biographical and philosophical irony.)

13. "O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being" uses:
    a) Alliteration and assonance
    b) Onomatopoeia and consonance
    c) Internal rhyme and cacophony
    d) Neither
    Answer: a) Alliteration and assonance (Repetition of "w"/"o" sounds.)

14. 
    

15. The line "A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d" mimics heaviness through:
    a) Spondaic meter
    b) Caesura
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Stress on "heavy weight" + pauses.)

15. The phrase "I bleed! / A heavy weight of hours" combines:
    a) Metaphor and synesthesia
    b) Paradox and metonymy
    c) Personification and allusion
    d) All of the above
    Answer: b) Paradox and metonymy (Time as both abstract "weight" and literal chains.)

1. The "dead leaves" in Stanza I primarily symbolize:
   a) The inevitability of death
   b) The cyclical nature of life and decay
   c) Political oppression
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Keats intertwines natural decay with human mortality.)

2. 
   

3. "Pestilence-stricken multitudes" suggests that death is:
   a) A collective human experience
   b) A natural but diseased process
   c) A punishment for sin
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Leaves as "multitudes" universalize mortality.)

4. 
   

5. The "winged seeds" in Stanza II represent:
   a) Hope for rebirth after death
   b) The poet’s desire for legacy
   c) The fleeting nature of life
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Seeds symbolize regeneration and artistic survival.)

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7. Keats’ plea, "Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!" reflects his:
   a) Fear of oblivion
   b) Longing for transcendence
   c) Rejection of human frailty
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (He seeks escape from mortality through nature.)

8. 
   

9. The final line ("If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?") is ironic because:
   a) Keats knew he was dying (Winter = his death)
   b) Nature’s cycles don’t guarantee personal renewal
   c) It contradicts the poem’s earlier despair
   d) All of the above
   Answer: d) All of the above (Biographical, philosophical, and structural irony.)

6. The West Wind is asked to "Make me thy lyre" because Keats wants to:
   a) Surrender his ego to nature’s power
   b) Become a passive instrument of inspiration
   c) Contrast with Shelley’s assertive "trumpet"
   d) All of the above
   Answer: d) All of the above (Keatsian humility vs. Shelleyan activism.)

7. 
   

8. "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" implies the poet’s role is:
   a) A suffering visionary
   b) A Christ-like martyr for art
   c) A victim of nature’s cruelty
   d) Both a and b
   Answer: d) Both a and b (Romantic trope of the tortured artist.)

9. 
   

10. "Drive my dead thoughts over the universe" suggests poetry should:
    a) Spread ideas like seeds
    b) Outlast the poet’s death
    c) Ignite political change
    d) Both a and b
    Answer: d) Both a and b (Art as both organic and revolutionary.)

11. 
    

12. The "trumpet of a prophecy" (Stanza V) aligns the poet with:
    a) A biblical seer
    b) A revolutionary leader
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Shelley’s influence; Keats is more ambiguous.)

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14. Keats’ focus on the wind’s "voice" (Stanza IV) emphasizes:
    a) Poetry as natural force
    b) The poet’s struggle to be heard
    c) The wind’s superiority over art
    d) Both a and b
    Answer: d) Both a and b (Metonymy equates wind’s power with poetic voice.)

11. The West Wind embodies the sublime because it is:
    a) Terrifying and beautiful
    b) Beyond human control
    c) A metaphor for divine power
    d) All of the above
    Answer: d) All of the above (Burkean/Kantian sublime: awe mixed with fear.)

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13. "Thou dirge / Of the dying year" evokes sublimity through:
    a) Mournful music and vast scale
    b) The paradox of death in nature
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Dirge = sublime sound; "dying year" = cosmic scale.)

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15. The Mediterranean’s "crystalline streams" (Stanza III) appear sublime until the wind:
    a) Reveals their latent violence
    b) Destroys their illusion of calm
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Sublime = tension between beauty and terror.)

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17. "Angels of rain and lightning" (Stanza II) sublime because they:
    a) Merge divine and destructive imagery
    b) Represent nature’s uncontrollable power
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Ambiguous: messengers of life or doom?)

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19. The poem’s terza rima structure enhances sublimity by:
    a) Mimicking the wind’s relentless motion
    b) Creating a sense of inevitability
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Form mirrors the wind’s uncontrollable force.)

16. Compared to Wordsworth’s nature, Keats’ West Wind is more:
    a) Destructive and impersonal
    b) Focused on artistic inspiration
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Wordsworth’s nature comforts; Keats’ overwhelms.)

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18. The poem’s treatment of immortality differs from Shelley’s "Ozymandias" by:
    a) Offering hope through art
    b) Rejecting monuments for natural cycles
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats trusts nature’s cycles; Shelley mocks human pride.)

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20. "A heavy weight of hours" critiques Romantic idealism by highlighting:
    a) Time’s oppression of the poet
    b) The futility of seeking immortality
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats’ skepticism of transcendent escape.)

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22. The ode’s closing question undermines itself by:
    a) Ignoring Keats’ tuberculosis (Winter = death)
    b) Pretending nature cares about human hope
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Irony: the poem’s hope vs. Keats’ reality.)

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24. The West Wind’s sublimity ultimately suggests:
    a) Art’s power to rival nature
    b) Humanity’s insignificance
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats wavers between awe and despair.)

1. Unlike Keats, Shelley’s wind is explicitly linked to:
   a) Political revolution
   b) Personal mortality
   c) Hellenistic beauty
   d) Christian redemption
   Answer: a) Political revolution (Shelley’s "trumpet of a prophecy" signals radical change, while Keats focuses on art’s endurance.)

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3. Both odes use terza rima, but Keats’ structure feels more:
   a) Chaotic, mirroring existential despair
   b) Controlled, reflecting aesthetic meditation
   c) Narrative, like a dramatic monologue
   d) None of the above
   Answer: b) Controlled, reflecting aesthetic meditation (Shelley’s lines surge violently; Keats’ are more measured.)

4. 
   

5. Shelley’s "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" differs from Keats’ suffering in its:
   a) Explicit political martyrdom
   b) Lack of biographical resonance
   c) Rejection of nature’s solace
   d) Both a and c
   Answer: d) Both a and c (Keats’ pain is personal/artistic; Shelley’s is revolutionary.)

6. 
   

7. Keats’ "winged seeds" and Shelley’s "dead leaves" both symbolize cycles, but Keats emphasizes:
   a) Artistic legacy over political change
   b) Natural decay over rebirth
   c) Individual mortality over collective hope
   d) Both a and c
   Answer: a) Artistic legacy over political change (Shelley’s "leaves" = old regimes; Keats’ "seeds" = poems.)

8. 
   

9. The final rhetorical question ("If Winter comes...") in both odes reveals:
   a) Keats’ irony vs. Shelley’s literalism
   b) Shelley’s optimism vs. Keats’ doubt
   c) Identical views on immortality
   d) Neither
   Answer: b) Shelley’s optimism vs. Keats’ doubt (Shelley prophesies renewal; Keats’ question is tentatively hopeful.)

6. Wordsworth’s "celestial light" contrasts with Keats’ wind in its:
   a) Divine assurance vs. natural ambiguity
   b) Rejection of mortality
   c) Focus on childhood innocence
   d) Both a and c
   Answer: d) Both a and c (Wordsworth’s Platonic idealism vs. Keats’ earthly cycles.)

6. Keats’ "heavy weight of hours" parallels Wordsworth’s "shades of the prison-house," but Keats blames:
   a) Time, not societal corruption
   b) Nature, not lost divinity
   c) Both a and b
   d) Neither
   Answer: a) Time, not societal corruption (Wordsworth laments growing up; Keats mourns aging/decay.)

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8. Wordsworth’s "timely utterance" offers solace; Keats’ wind offers:
   a) Catharsis without resolution
   b) Aesthetic sublimity over comfort
   c) Both a and b
   d) Neither
   Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats finds beauty in struggle, not Wordsworthian consolation.)

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10. Both odes use nature, but Wordsworth’s is:
    a) A moral teacher
    b) A mirror for human emotion
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats’ nature is amoral and overwhelming.)

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12. Wordsworth’s "philosophic mind" contrasts with Keats’ poet, who seeks:
    a) Communion with nature’s violence
    b) Artistic immortality, not wisdom
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats’ poet is passive vessel; Wordsworth’s gains insight.)

11. Shelley’s wind is a "destroyer and preserver"; Keats’ is more:
    a) Aestheticized and indifferent
    b) Personally threatening
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats’ wind is sublime but not revolutionary.)

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13. Wordsworth’s "thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears" differ from Keats’ "dead thoughts" in their:
    a) Emotional restraint vs. visceral imagery
    b) Spiritual depth vs. material decay
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Wordsworth = transcendent; Keats = bodily/artistic.)

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15. Shelley’s "Make me thy lyre" and Keats’ similar plea reveal:
    a) Shelley’s activism vs. Keats’ passivity
    b) Keats’ humility vs. Shelley’s grandiosity
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Shelley’s lyre = tool for change; Keats’ = escape.)

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17. Wordsworth’s "joy" in nature contrasts with Keats’:
    a) "Aching pleasure" in the wind’s pain
    b) Focus on mortality’s inevitability
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Keats’ sublime blends pain/beauty; Wordsworth finds pure solace.)

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19. The odes’ closing lines differ most in their:
    a) Keats’ ambiguity vs. Shelley’s certainty
    b) Wordsworth’s resolution vs. Keats’ open question
    c) Both a and b
    d) Neither
    Answer: c) Both a and b (Shelley: "Spring" will come; Wordsworth: accepts loss; Keats: wonders.)

 The wind’s dual role as "Destroyer and Preserver" most closely mirrors Hegel’s concept of:
a) Absolute Spirit
b) Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis
c) Master-Slave dialectic
d) Weltgeist (World Spirit)
Answer: b) Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis (Destruction (thesis) + Preservation (antithesis) → Cyclical renewal (synthesis).)

 Keats’ "winged seeds" buried in winter but promising spring reflect Hegel’s idea that:

a) History progresses linearly
b) Negation contains the seeds of new growth
c) Nature is irrational
d) Art supersedes philosophy
Answer: b) Negation contains the seeds of new growth (Hegel’s "determinate negation" – decay enables rebirth.)

 The poem’s terza rima structure, with its interlocking rhymes, philosophically parallels:

a) Hegel’s teleology
b) The dialectical movement of thought
c) Burke’s sublime terror
d) Schopenhauer’s will
Answer: b) The dialectical movement of thought (ABA BCB CDC patterns mimic conflict → resolution.)

 The West Wind evokes the Burkean sublime primarily through its:
a) Beauty and symmetry
b) Terror mixed with awe
c) Moral instruction
d) Harmonious balance
Answer: b) Terror mixed with awe (Burke: Sublime = overwhelming power + thrilling fear.)

 The "Mediterranean... lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams" before the wind’s violence exemplifies Burke’s sublime by:
a) Contrasting calm with sudden terror
b) Rejecting natural harmony
c) Invoking Christian divinity
d) None of the above
Answer: a) Contrasting calm with sudden terror (Burke: Sublime requires tension between tranquility and threat.)

 Keats’ "I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!" aligns with Burke’s idea that the sublime:

a) Requires actual pain
b) Thrives on imagined danger
c) Demands emotional detachment
d) Celebrates human dominance
Answer: b) Thrives on imagined danger (Burke: Sublime pain is vicarious, not literal.)

 The line "A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d" reflects Kierkegaard’s concept of:
a) Absurdity
b) Anguish (Angst)
c) Leap of faith
d) Eternal recurrence
Answer: b) Anguish (Angst) (Kierkegaard: Dread of temporal bondage and meaningless suffering.)

 Keats’ plea to the wind ("Be thou me!") mirrors Camus’ existential:
a) Revolt against absurdity
b) Acceptance of fate
c) Rejection of nature
d) Embrace of suicide
Answer: a) Revolt against absurdity (Like Camus’ Sisyphus, Keats seeks meaning in struggle.)

 The poem’s cyclical view of time ("If Winter comes...") contrasts with Nietzsche’s "eternal recurrence" by:
a) Offering hope, not fatalism
b) Denying individual agency
c) Rejecting natural cycles
d) None of the above
Answer: a) Offering hope, not fatalism (Nietzsche’s recurrence is neutral; Keats’ implies redemption.)

 The wind’s indifference to human suffering evokes:
a) Sartre’s "existence precedes essence"
b) Heidegger’s "being-toward-death"
c) Schopenhauer’s blind Will
d) All of the above
Answer: c) Schopenhauer’s blind Will (Nature as impersonal, crushing force aligns with Schopenhauer’s pessimism.)

 Harold Bloom & Anxiety of Influence

 Bloom would argue Keats’ struggle with the West Wind reflects:
a) Oedipal rivalry with Wordsworth
b) Ambivalence toward Shelley’s poetic dominance
c) Misreading of Milton’s sublime
d) All of the above
Answer: b) Ambivalence toward Shelley’s poetic dominance (Shelley’s wind ode (1819) loomed over Keats’ work; Bloom sees creative wrestling.)

 The line "Make me thy lyre" exemplifies Bloom’s "kenosis" (emptying) because Keats:
a) Rejects his poetic ego to avoid Shelley’s influence
b) Copies Shelley’s imagery verbatim
c) Parodies Romantic tropes
d) None of the above
Answer: a) Rejects his poetic ego to avoid Shelley’s influence (Self-diminishment as defense against predecessor’s power.)

Bloom would read the final question ("If Winter comes...") as Keats’:

a) Triumphant overcoming of mortality
b) Ironic admission of poetic inadequacy
c) Sublimation of Shelleyan anxiety into hope
d) Both b and c
Answer: d) Both b and c (Ambivalence: the line is hopeful yet undercut by Keats’ looming death.)

 A New Historicist reading of "pestilence-stricken multitudes" might link it to:
a) The 1818-19 typhus epidemic
b) Post-Peterloo Massacre repression
c) Both a and b
d) Neither
Answer: c) Both a and b (Diseased leaves mirror social unrest and literal plague.)

 The "azure sister of the Spring" could be politicized as referencing:
a) The failed 1820 Revolutions in Europe
b) The "sister" nations of England and France
c) Both a and b
d) Neither
Answer: a) The failed 1820 Revolutions in Europe (Spring = political hope; "azure" evokes liberal ideals.)

 New Historicists would argue the wind’s "mighty harmonies" symbolize:
a) Industrial machinery’s rise
b) Censorship of radical press
c) Luddite uprisings
d) None of the above
Answer: b) Censorship of radical press (Wind’s voice = suppressed revolutionary writings.)

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3. Eco-Criticism

Q7: An eco-critical reading emphasizes the "winged seeds" as:
a) Symbols of human colonization
b) Keats’ critique of deforestation
c) Non-human agency in regeneration
d) Both a and c
Answer: c) Non-human agency in regeneration (Eco-criticism highlights nature’s autonomy from human will.)

Q8: The Mediterranean’s "crystalline streams" being disrupted critiques:
a) Romantic idealization of nature
b) British naval imperialism
c) Both a and b
d) Neither
Answer: a) Romantic idealization of nature (Eco-criticism exposes nature’s fragility vs. Romantic awe.)

Q9: The poem’s terza rima structure, from an eco-critical view, mirrors:
a) Ecosystems’ interconnectedness
b) The wind’s chaotic force
c) Both a and b
d) Neither
Answer: c) Both a and b (Interlocking rhymes = ecological balance; enjambment = wind’s unpredictability.)

Q10: Eco-critics might argue Keats’ wind resists:
a) Anthropocentrism
b) The sublime tradition
c) Both a and b
d) Neither
Answer: a) Anthropocentrism (The wind acts independently, refusing to serve human ends.)