Identifying key themes in 'The Listeners' by Walter de la Mare | Exit Quiz | Oak National Academy

Select the lines from 'The Listeners' which best match to auditory sense.

• "Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight"

• "forest’s ferny floor"

• “Fell echoing through the shadowiness”

• "Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes"

• “...sound of iron on stone”

Answer explanation

Poets use of a range of vivid and descriptive language that appeals to the senses with the aim to evoke emotions and enhance the atmosphere of the poem.

Match the sense to the type of imagery.

• smell

• olfactory

• hearing

• gustatory

• sight

• auditory

• touch

• visual

• taste

• tactile

Answer explanation

Imagery in poetry refers to the use of vivid and descriptive language that appeals to the senses, creating mental pictures, sensations, and experiences for the reader.

True or False? The narrative of the poem 'The Listeners' by Walter de la Mare is fully resolved at the end.

Answer explanation

'The Listeners' is deliberately crafted to be enigmatic and open to interpretation. This links with the thematic exploration of the mysterious and the unknown.

Match the keywords to their definitions.

• imagery

• is a table where readers can note down sensory information

• theme

• an idea that the poet intends the audience to engage with

• justify

• to show or prove something using evidence

• sensory chart

• the use of sensory language to create mental pictures

Answer explanation

A poet can use language to evoke sensory details and allow readers to imagine these sensations.

Which of the following are themes that could be justified within the poem ‘The Listeners’?

• war and conflict

• isolation

• humour

• the unexplained and unresolved

• romance

Answer explanation

The ultimate outcome of the encounter in the poem is left unresolved. Readers do not know whether the traveller will return or what the long-term consequences of the encounter might be.

Which of the following descriptions are used to describe the outside of the house?

• "forest's ferny floor"

• "bird flew up out of the turret"

• "a host of phantom listeners that dwelt in the lone house"

• "horse moved, cropping the dark turf"

• "faint moonbeams on the dark stair"

Answer explanation

Walter de la Mare might have used the door to symbolise the barrier between the two settings he described in the poem.