Byzantium Quizzes

Byzantium Quiz Vocabulary, Form, and Literary Devices

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

Ocean

Center

Tower
2 Who is Hades?
The Greek god of the underworld

The emperor who founded the city of Constantinople

An Egyptian pharaoh

A famous patriarch of the early Orthodox Church
3 What type of stanzas make up the poem?
Tercets

Octaves

Sestets

Quintains
4 What does the word "begot" most closely mean?
Possessed

Tricked

Understood

Created
5 What is the poem's form?
It does not follow a traditional form

Sonnet

Villanelle

Sestina
6 Which type of meter are most of the poem's lines written in?
Trochaic trimeter

Iambic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Iambic tetrameter
7 What does the word "superhuman" most closely mean?
Extremely human-like

Very large

Possessed of unusual or magical powers

Animal-like and instinctive
8 What is the meter of the line "breathless mouths may summon"?
Iambic pentameter

Dactylic pentameter

Iambic trimeter

Trochaic trimeter
9 What does the word "bobbin" most closely mean?
A type of ballroom dance popular in the early 20th century

A multi-story Ottoman mansion

An implement used in sewing and weaving

A despotic ruler, especially in the ancient world
10 What does the word "shade" most closely mean?
Ghost

Curtain

Night

Tent
11 What does the word "singe" most closely mean?
Burn

Monkey

Opera

Clean
12 Which objects are personified in this work?
The bobbin

The marbles

The domes

The moon
13 What does the word "smithies" most closely mean?
Metal forgeries

Narrow alleyways

Members of the royal court

Rivers to the underworld
14 What is the rhyme scheme of each stanza?
AABBCDDC

ABABCDCD

ABABCBCDC

ABBACDDC
15 What is the meter of the line "Fresh images beget"?
Spondaic pentameter

Iambic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Trochaic tetrameter
16 The line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow" contains an instance of what?
Personification

Metaphor

Simile

Metonymy
17 What does the word "flit" most closely mean?
Dart

Equivocate

Hide

Blink
18 What is the meter of the line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow"?
Trochaic trimeter

Iambic tetrameter

Trochaic tetrameter

Dactylic pentameter
19 What does the word "gong" most closely mean?
A meter that Yeats made up and used in his poetry

A wormlike creature from Greek myth

A type of Byzantine church

An instrument that can be struck to make a ringing sound
20 Which of the following phrases is not alliterative?
"moonlit dome disdains"

"cannot singe a sleeve"

"mire or blood"

"Night resonance recedes"
21 Which best describes the poem's conflict?
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

It is a conflict between the Emperor and his soldiery on the one hand, and everyday citizens on the other
22 To which of the following does Yeats frequent allude in this work?
Celtic legend

Ottoman history

Greek myth

Easter Orthodox theology
23 Which of the following words is an instance of onomatopoeia?
none of these are onomatopoetic

bough

trance

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

The physical world

War

The spiritual world
25 How many stanzas does the poem contain?
5

4

2

3

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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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