Welcome to our William Shakespeare Quiz Page

Shakespeare Quiz Questions and Answers

Quiz I

1. Romeo and Juliet is set in which Italian city?
2. What was the name of Shakespeare's wife? And how many children did they have?






3. Without taking into account any lost plays or collaborations, how many plays did William Shakespeare write?
4. In which play are the characters Chiron and Demetrius cut up and baked in a meat pie that their mother is then tricked into eating?
5. Helena, the low-born ward of a French countess, is in love with Bertram in which play?
6. In A Midsummer Night's Dream by what other name is Puck known by?
7. Who is the Prince of Denmark in a Shakespeare play?
8. Which is Shakespeare’s shortest play?
9. And which is Shakespeare’s longest play?
10. What is sonnet 18 often alternatively titled?
11. Which famous writer of the same era disliked A Midsummer Night’s Dream calling it 'insipid and ridiculous'?
12. Which play is thought by many to be the last that Shakespeare wrote alone?
13. 'Exit, pursued by a bear', is a famous stage direction in which play?
14. Which king of Scotland is murdered in Macbeth?
15. Oberon is king of the fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream, but who is Queen of the Fairies?

Answers:

1. Verona
2. Anne Hathaway. Three (a son Hamnet, and two daughters, Susanna and Judith)
3. 37
4. Titus Andronicus
5. All's Well That Ends Well
6. Robin Goodfellow
7. Hamlet
8. The Comedy of Errors (which is a third of the length of his longest)
9. Hamlet (which takes four hours to perform)
10. Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
11. Samual Pepys
12. The Tempest
13. The Winter's Tale
14. Duncan
15. Titania

Quiz II

1. Cole Porter's Kiss Me, Kate is an adaptation of which play?
2. Goneril, Regan and Cordelia are the daughters of which Shakespeare character?
3. 'All the world's a stage' is the phrase that begins a monologue in which play? And what's the second line in this monologue?
4. Who is consort to Titania, Queen of the Fairies?
5. Name the theatre in London associated with William Shakespeare which was built in 1599 and destroyed by fire on 29 June 1613?
6. Which English poet and playwright, the foremost Elizabethan tragedian of his day, was born in the same year as William Shakespeare?
7. True or false. Shakespeare is buried in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey?
8. Which planet in the Solar System has several moons named after Shakespearean characters?
9. Which year is the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death?
10. Antonio is the title character in which play?
11. Which character's mother is Lady Capulet?
12. What is Crab in The Two Gentlemen of Verona?
13. Who is the Moor of Venice?
14. William Shakespeare died in 1616 on which feast day?
15. There are only two female characters in the play Hamlet, name either?

Answers:

1. The Taming of the Shrew
2. King Lear
3. As You Like It. 'And all the men and women merely players'.
4. Oberon
5. The Globe Theatre
6. Christopher Marlowe
7. False (he's buried in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford upon Avon)
8. Uranus
9. 2016
10. The Merchant of Venice
11. Juliet (in Romeo and Juliet)
12. A dog
13. Othello






14. St George's Day (April 23rd)
15. Ophelia or Gertrude

Some interesting William Shakespeare trivia...

Did you know that most of us quote Shakespeare in our everyday speech without even realising it. Some examples are as follows:

1. 'Eaten me out of house and home' is from Henry IV, Part II
2. 'Short shrift' - Richard III
3. 'Mum's the word' - Henry VI, Part II
4. 'All that glisters is not gold' - The Merchant of Venice
5. 'The world's mine oyster' - The Merchant of Venice
6. 'What the Dickens?' - Merry Wives of Windsor
7. In a pickle' - The Tempest
8. 'It was Greek to me' - Julius Caeser
9. 'I have not slept one wink' - Cymbeline
10. 'Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them' - Twelfth Night