Byzantium Quizzes

Byzantium Quiz Vocabulary, Form, and Literary Devices

1 What does the word "mire" most closely mean?

Muck

Center

Ocean

Tower
2 Who is Hades?

An Egyptian pharaoh

A famous patriarch of the early Orthodox Church

The Greek god of the underworld

The emperor who founded the city of Constantinople
3 What type of stanzas make up the poem?

Tercets

Quintains

Octaves

Sestets
4 What does the word "begot" most closely mean?

Created

Tricked

Understood

Possessed
5 What is the poem's form?

Sestina

It does not follow a traditional form

Sonnet

Villanelle
6 Which type of meter are most of the poem's lines written in?

Iambic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Iambic tetrameter

Trochaic trimeter
7 What does the word "superhuman" most closely mean?

Animal-like and instinctive

Very large

Extremely human-like

Possessed of unusual or magical powers
8 What is the meter of the line "breathless mouths may summon"?

Iambic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Trochaic trimeter

Dactylic pentameter
9 What does the word "bobbin" most closely mean?

An implement used in sewing and weaving

A type of ballroom dance popular in the early 20th century

A despotic ruler, especially in the ancient world

A multi-story Ottoman mansion
10 What does the word "shade" most closely mean?

Tent

Night

Curtain

Ghost
11 What does the word "singe" most closely mean?

Clean

Monkey

Opera

Burn
12 Which objects are personified in this work?

The moon

The bobbin

The marbles

The domes
13 What does the word "smithies" most closely mean?

Narrow alleyways

Members of the royal court

Rivers to the underworld

Metal forgeries
14 What is the rhyme scheme of each stanza?

AABBCDDC

ABBACDDC

ABABCDCD

ABABCBCDC
15 What is the meter of the line "Fresh images beget"?

Iambic trimeter

Spondaic pentameter

Trochaic tetrameter

Iambic pentameter
16 The line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow" contains an instance of what?

Metonymy

Metaphor

Simile

Personification
17 What does the word "flit" most closely mean?

Equivocate

Hide

Blink

Dart
18 What is the meter of the line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow"?

Trochaic trimeter

Dactylic pentameter

Iambic tetrameter

Trochaic tetrameter
19 What does the word "gong" most closely mean?

A type of Byzantine church

A meter that Yeats made up and used in his poetry

An instrument that can be struck to make a ringing sound

A wormlike creature from Greek myth
20 Which of the following phrases is not alliterative?

"mire or blood"

"cannot singe a sleeve"

"Night resonance recedes"

"moonlit dome disdains"
21 Which best describes the poem's conflict?

It is a conflict between the Emperor and his soldiery on the one hand, and everyday citizens on the other

It is a conflict between the speaker and the shade

It is a conflict between the Byzantine and Persian empires

It is a conflict between spiritual and physical existence
22 To which of the following does Yeats frequent allude in this work?

Celtic legend

Easter Orthodox theology

Ottoman history

Greek myth
23 Which of the following words is an instance of onomatopoeia?

trance

none of these are onomatopoetic

bough

singe
24 The phrase "mire and blood" is a synecdoche representing what?

The physical world

Family

The spiritual world

War
25 How many stanzas does the poem contain?

2

3

5

4

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Byzantium study guide contains a biography of William Butler Yeats, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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