The Author to Her Book quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which description best fits the form of this poem?

   • A sonnet of fourteen lines that closes on a single rhymed couplet
   • Correct answer: Twenty-four lines of rhymed couplets, mostly ten syllables long
   • Six four-line stanzas rhymed ABAB, in the manner of a folk ballad
   • Free verse with no regular rhyme and lines of uneven length

   Correct. The 24 lines rhyme in pairs (brain and remain, saw and flaw), with no stanza breaks, and most lines have ten syllables in a mostly regular iambic beat.

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2. 2

   Question 2. In the first line, "Thou ill-form’d offspring of my feeble brain," what does the speaker call her book?

   • Correct answer: A badly formed child born of her own feeble mind
   • A gift she made by hand for her own children
   • A lesson book she wrote to teach her family
   • A copy of another poet's work that she admired

   Offspring means a child, and this one was born of her brain. Ill-form'd means badly shaped. From this line grows the extended metaphor that runs through the whole poem: the book is a child, and the author is its mother.

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3. 3

   Question 3. The book was "snatcht from thence by friends, less wise then true". What does this say about the friends?

   • They were wiser than anyone else she knew
   • They told lies about her to the printer
   • Correct answer: They were more loyal than they were wise
   • They stole the book to sell it for money

   Less wise than true means more loyal than wise. The friends meant well, but they took the child before it was ready and "expos’d to publick view," made it trudge "in raggs" to the press.

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4. 4

   Question 4. In "Made thee in raggs, halting to th’ press to trudg," what does halting mean?

   • Stopping short and refusing to go on
   • Speaking slowly and with hesitation
   • Hurrying along as fast as it can
   • Correct answer: Limping, walking with an uneven step

   Halting here means limping. The child trudges to the press, the printer's shop, in rags and on lame legs. Stopping does not fit, since the child keeps going all the way to the press.

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5. 5

   Question 5. What happens when the speaker tries to clean the child up: "I wash’d thy face, but more defects I saw,"?

   • The washing makes the child look new, so she is satisfied
   • Correct answer: Each fix shows more faults, and rubbing off a spot makes a flaw
   • The child runs away from her before she can finish the job
   • Her friends take over and wash its face for her instead

   The next line says "And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw." Every attempt to correct the child shows or makes another fault.

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6. 6

   Question 6. In "I stretcht thy joynts to make thee even feet," what goes wrong?

   • The child walks perfectly and runs straight back to the press
   • The child's joints break, and after that it cannot walk at all
   • The child grows too tall to fit into any of its clothes
   • Correct answer: The child still runs with a hobble, more than is fitting

   The next line says "Yet still thou run’st more hobling then is meet;", that is, it still limps more than is fitting. Then means than here.

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7. 7

   Question 7. Why does the speaker send the child out dressed in homespun cloth?

   • She thinks that plain cloth suits the child better than silk
   • Her friends sent homespun cloth back home with the child
   • Correct answer: She can find nothing but homespun cloth in the house
   • The critics demand that the child be plainly dressed

   "In better dress to trim thee was my mind," she says, but "nought save home-spun Cloth, i’th’ house I find". She wanted to dress it up; plain homemade cloth was all she had.

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8. 8

   Question 8. In "In this array, ’mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam" who are the Vulgars?

   • Crude people with rude manners
   • Correct answer: Common people, the everyday readers
   • Learned judges who find fault in writing
   • Wandering beggars who travel the roads

   Vulgars are common, ordinary people, here the everyday readers. She lets the child roam among them but warns it: "In Criticks hands, beware thou dost not come;". The learned judges are the critics, the very people she wants it to avoid.

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9. 9

   Question 9. The speaker calls her book an "ill-form’d offspring" and calls its mother poor. Which reading of this modesty does the poem best support?

   • It shows she wanted the friends to take full credit for the book
   • It shows she meant to stop writing once the book had gone out
   • Correct answer: It is also a quiet claim that she alone is this book's author
   • It is a request that critics fix the book's faults on her behalf

   However harshly she judges the child, she calls it "mine own", works on it out of affection, and tells it "say, thou hadst none:" when asked for a father. That can be read as a claim that she alone made it. The modest pose lets her take charge of her book without seeming proud.

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