The More Loving One quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

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

   • A ballad that tells a love story and repeats a refrain
   • Correct answer: Four four-line stanzas, each made of two rhymed couplets
   • A free verse poem with no rhyme and no regular stanzas
   • A sonnet of fourteen lines that closes on a rhymed couplet

   Correct. The poem has sixteen lines in four four-line stanzas. In each stanza the first two lines rhyme with each other and so do the last two: well and hell, then least and beast.

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2. 2

   Question 2. In the line "But on earth indifference is the least", what does indifference mean?

   • Strong dislike that grows into hatred
   • Cruelty that is meant to cause pain
   • Correct answer: Not caring one way or the other
   • Being unlike everyone else around you

   Indifference means not caring one way or the other. The stars do not hate the speaker and they are not cruel to him; they simply take no interest in him. That is the sense of the second line, where he says he can go to hell "for all they care". Indifference has nothing to do with being different.

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3. 3

   Question 3. The speaker says that on earth indifference is the least "We have to dread from man or beast." What is his point?

   • Correct answer: Being ignored is the smallest of the things we have to fear
   • Being ignored is the worst thing anyone can do to us
   • People and animals never ignore us the way stars do
   • The stars are more dangerous than any person or animal

   The least we have to dread means the smallest of the things we have to fear. People and animals can do far worse to us than ignore us, so being ignored by the stars is not so bad.

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4. 4

   Question 4. In the second stanza the speaker asks how we would like it "were stars to burn" with "a passion for us we could not return?" What is he asking us to imagine?

   • Watching the stars burn out one by one until the sky is dark
   • Being punished by the stars for failing to admire them
   • Loving the stars so much that we could never look away
   • Correct answer: Being loved by the stars far more than we could love them back

   He turns the situation around. Suppose the stars burned with love for us and we could not feel the same. Then we would be the ones who cannot love back.

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5. 5

   Question 5. The second stanza ends with two famous lines: "If equal affection cannot be," and "Let the more loving one be me." What does the speaker mean?

   • If two people love each other equally, neither one can be hurt
   • Correct answer: If love cannot be equal, he would rather be the one who loves more
   • If he keeps on loving long enough, the stars will love him back
   • If love cannot be equal, it is wiser to stop loving than to be hurt

   Affection means fond feeling or love. If the feeling cannot be the same on both sides, the speaker chooses to be the side that gives more of it.

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6. 6

   Question 6. In the third stanza the speaker says he cannot say "I missed one terribly all day." What is he admitting?

   • He is so sad that he has stopped looking up at the sky at all
   • He could not find a single star when he looked for one at night
   • Correct answer: He did not feel the stars' absence much during the day
   • He has decided the stars were never worth admiring anyway

   Missed means felt the absence of, and terribly means very much. He thinks of himself as an admirer of the stars, yet he admits that all day, while they were out of sight, he did not miss a single one very much.

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7. 7

   Question 7. In the line "And feel its total dark sublime", what does sublime mean?

   • Correct answer: Awe-inspiring and grand
   • Gloomy and frightening
   • Hidden below the surface
   • Plain and quite ordinary

   Sublime means awe-inspiring and grand: so great that it fills a person with wonder. In this line dark is a noun, the darkness, and sublime describes it. The speaker says he should learn to feel that the total darkness of an empty sky is something grand.

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8. 8

   Question 8. Which statement best expresses the poem's central idea?

   • When love is not returned, the wise thing is to stop caring at once
   • The stars watch over people and quietly return the love they are given
   • A world without stars would be too dark and empty for anyone to bear
   • Correct answer: When love cannot be equal, it is better to be the one who loves more

   The stars do not care about the speaker, and he does not ask them to. If the feeling cannot be equal, he says, "Let the more loving one be me."

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9. 9

   Question 9. The poem ends with the line "Though this might take me a little time." What does this last line add?

   • A cheerful promise that he would forget the stars by the next day
   • A bitter complaint that the stars have already wasted his time
   • Correct answer: A quiet admission that he would need time to get used to the loss
   • A final warning that the stars are going to burn out very soon

   The line is an understatement: it says less than it means. He says he should learn to find an empty sky sublime, and he admits that this would not happen at once.

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