Minor UK Poet Laureates

I was going through the list of Poet Laureates looking for those that didn’t set instant light bulbs going, simply because I couldn’t add any context to Nahum Tate when he came up as an answer.

Questions

Poet Laureate at the turn of the 20th century and not particularly well remembered today, it has been alleged that which alliterative poet got the role because he supported Lord Salisbury in the 1895 General Election? His work “Haunts of Ancient Peace” provides the name of the first track on Van Morrison’s 1980 album “Common One”.

ALFRED AUSTIN

Called a ‘poetaster’ because he apparently wasn’t very good, who became Poet Laureate during the French Revolution, being followed by the more notable Lake Poet Robert Southey in 1813?

HENRY JAMES PYE

More prominent as a poet than his father of the same name, which Poet Laureate at the start of the French Revolution is considered to be one of the ‘Graveyard poets’, a loose grouping characterised by their morbid works that also included Thomas Gray? “The Pleasure of Melancholy” is an example of his work.

THOMAS WARTON

The longest in the role prior to Robert Southey, which alliterative writer became Poet Laureate in 1757 after the refusal of Thomas Gray? Also a playwright, his poetry includes “The Je Ne Sais Quoi”.

WILLIAM WHITEHEAD

A target of the satirical Alexander Pope poem “The Dunciad”, which alliterative Poet Laureate was in the role from 1730 to 1757, beating Nahum Tate’s record for length in the role? He wrote an entertaining autobiography whose title begins “An Apology for the Life of”.

COLLEY CIBBER

The youngest to date to have become Poet Laureate, which Yorskhire-born poet was rewarded with the role in 1718 after penning a work about Thomas Pelham-Holles’ marriage to Lady Harriet Godolphin? Pelham-Holles is also known as the Duke of Newcastle, later having two spells as Prime Minister.

LAWRENCE EUSDEN

Considered the first editor of the works of William Shakespeare, who had a short spell as Poet Laureate from 1715 to 1718? He also wrote plays with his works including “Tamerlane”, “The Ambitious Stepmother” and the suspicious sounding “The Biter”.

NICHOLAS ROWE

Being a target of Alexander Pope’s satirical poem “The Dunciad” just like the later Poet Laureate Colley Cibber, Nahum Tate is also known as a lyricist, having provided the libretto to which opera that had its premiere in 1689?

DIDO AND AENEAS

Changing the ending so that it was a happy one, Nahum Tate wrote an adaptation of which William Shakespeare play, keeping some of the lines and modifying others only slightly? It first appeared in 1981 and was preferred by Samuel Johnson to the original.

KING LEAR

John Dryden attacked which second Poet Laureate in his work “Absalom and Achitophel”, one of a series of barbed exchanges between the two that emerged after political and religious differences came to the fore? Dying only three years into the role, both him and his son Charles produced work as playwrights.

THOMAS SHADWELL

Nizami

Amazingly I’m still struggling to link this guy with “Layla” despite having no illusions he exists. Rumi is just too much of a ‘go to’ answer, and I really should try to appreciate the differences between the two.

Questions

The Nizami Mausoleum can be found just outside which Azerbaijani city, with a clue being given by the two-word term he is also commonly known as?

GANJA (As in Nizami Ganjavi)

An inspiration for the Derek and the Dominoes song “Layla”, which narrative poem by Nizami has a title referring to two lovers, Layla and her lover Qays, the latter known by an epithet that suggests he is a bit on the ‘crazy’ side?

LAYLA AND MAJNUN

“Layla and Majnun” is one of five long narrative poems that make up which collection by Nizami? It is known by two names, one meaning ‘Quintet’ and another meaning ‘Five treasures’.

KHAMSA / PANJ GANJ

A ruler of the Sassanian empire, which princess was Khosrow II’s lover in the title of a work by Nizami that is included in his “Khamsa” collection of narrative poems?

SHIRIN

What does the word ‘Namêh’ mean in the Nizami narrative poem “Eskandar-Namêh”, that word also making up part of the title in Ferdowsi’s work “Shahnameh”?

BOOK

A masterpiece of erotic literature that is alternatively named for Sassanian emperor Bahram V, how many ‘beauties’ feature according to the title of Nizami’s “Haft Peykar”, part of his “Khamsa” collection?

SEVEN (Haft means 7 in Persian)

Part of Nizami’s “Khamsa” collection of five narrative poems, the “Mahkzan ol-Asrar”, roughly meaning ‘Treasury of Mysteries’, is what type of poem? Written in rhyming couplets, it is perhaps better recognised in the title of a famous work by 13th-century poet Rumi that is considered to be one of the great works of Persian literature.

MASNAVI / MATHNAWI

Poetry

I don’t know my ‘quatrains’ from anything else, so it was good to find out which famous works used them and who knows, perhaps this will help me to predict the future.

Questions

Referring to where ‘the poppies blow’, for which poem is Canadian John McCrae best known?

IN FLANDERS FIELDS

Considered one of the three ‘formes fixes’ with the ballade and the virelai, what form of medieval and Renaissance French poetry, as well as the musical chanson form, is structured around a fixed pattern of repetition of material involving a refrain? “In Flanders Fields” by John McCrae is one such example.

RONDEAU

The name of which ‘Royal city’ in Ontario is taken from the family from which George IV’s family, the Hanoverians, were descended? John McCrae was born here, and his birthplace is a National Historic Site.

GUELPH

Which poem by William Blake begins with “To see a world in a grain of sand” and contains the line “Some are born to endless night”? The last line gives its name to a work by Agatha Christie.

AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE

Sounding like a recipe for disaster, ‘The marriage of’ which two locations gives its name to a book by William Blake? Aldous Huxley’s novel “The Doors of Perception” gets its title from this work.

HEAVEN & HELL

William Blake’s work “The marriage of heaven and hell” inspired the rather long title of which 2009 novel by Polish Nobel Prize of Literature winner Olga Tokarczuk?

DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD

Named for the collective group of Urthona, Urizen, Luvan and Tharmas, ‘The four’ what makes up the title of what unfinished prophetic book by William Blake that has the alternate title “Vala”?

ZOAS

Written and illustrated between 1804 and 1810, which William Blake epic poem takes its title from the surname of a 17th century author?

MILTON

From Perisan poetry and also known as a chahargana, what is a poem or verse in a poem in the form of the four-line quatrain, with examples of authors using these including Rumi and Omar Khayyam?

RUBA’I

Who is a semi-legendary female Medieval poet famous for composing ruba’iyat, the Perisan form of the quatrain, many of which were in the erotic shahrashub genre? She has been linked with Seljuk Sultan Ahmad Sanjar and may have served in the court of Mahmud of Ghazni.

MAHSATI

Being born and dying in Provence, which 16th century French figure is particularly well known for his collection of 942 quatrains, with somehow only one of them being unrhymed?

NOSTRADAMUS

An example of a ballad quatrain can be found in “La Belle Dame sans Merci”, a poem by which English literary great, with the title being derived from an earlier poem by Alain Chartier?

JOHN KEATS

Which English poet is best known for his 19th century translation of “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam”, a work full of, you guessed it, quatrains?

EDWARD FITZGERALD

Shairi is also known as what kind of quatrain, after the name of the Georgian poet who wrote perhaps the most famous work in his country’s literature, “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin”?

RUSTAVELIAN (The writer is Shota Rustaveli)

Covering a period of time which included both the Great Fire and Great Plague of London, which John Dryden poem is about a year of events from 1665 to 1666?

ANNUS MIRABILIS