The Garden of Love MCQs and Summary

By: Prof. Dr. Fazal Rehman Shamil | Last updated: March 6, 2025

Summary:

The Garden of Love is a poem from Songs of Experience (1794) by William Blake, depicting the corruption of innocence by institutionalized religion.

• The speaker visits the Garden of Love, expecting it to be a place of joy and freedom, but instead finds a chapel built in its place.
• The chapel has “Thou Shalt Not” written over the door, symbolizing restrictive religious doctrines.
• Instead of children playing freely, the garden is now filled with graves and priests in black robes, signifying death, repression, and sorrow.
• The poem criticizes organized religion, suggesting that it destroys natural human joy, love, and freedom.
• It contrasts the innocence of childhood with the harsh restrictions of adulthood, shaped by religious and societal rules.

Blake uses powerful imagery and contrast to convey how experience corrupts the joys of life, replacing them with rules, restrictions, and suffering.

MCQs:

1. Who wrote The Garden of Love?
   A) William Wordsworth
   B) John Keats
   C) William Blake
   D) Samuel Taylor Coleridge
   Answer: C) William Blake
2. In which collection does The Garden of Love appear?
   A) Songs of Innocence
   B) Songs of Experience
   C) Lyrical Ballads
   D) Paradise Lost
   Answer: B) Songs of Experience
3. What does the speaker find in the Garden of Love?
   A) A beautiful fountain
   B) A newly built chapel
   C) A blooming rose garden
   D) A group of singing children
   Answer: B) A newly built chapel

   

4. What is written on the chapel door?
   A) “Welcome All”
   B) “Thou Shalt Not”
   C) “Enter with Joy”
   D) “Blessed Be the Pure”
   Answer: B) “Thou Shalt Not”
5. What does the chapel symbolize in the poem?
   A) Freedom and joy
   B) Death and despair
   C) Restrictive religious doctrines
   D) The beauty of nature
   Answer: C) Restrictive religious doctrines
6. What has replaced the flowers and greenery in the Garden of Love?
   A) Bright lights and music
   B) Graves and tombstones
   C) A playground for children
   D) A pond with swans
   Answer: B) Graves and tombstones
7. How are the priests described in the poem?
   A) Wearing white robes and singing hymns
   B) Dancing joyfully in the garden
   C) Walking in black robes, binding with briars
   D) Praying with open arms
   Answer: C) Walking in black robes, binding with briars
8. What is the main theme of The Garden of Love?
   A) The power of nature
   B) The joy of childhood
   C) The corruption of love by religion
   D) The importance of education
   Answer: C) The corruption of love by religion
9. Which literary device is used in the phrase “binding with briars my joys and desires”?
   A) Simile
   B) Metaphor
   C) Hyperbole
   D) Personification
   Answer: B) Metaphor
10. What does the poem contrast?
    A) Love and hate
    B) Youthful innocence and religious repression
    C) Rich and poor
    D) Light and darkness
    Answer: B) Youthful innocence and religious repression