Byzantium Quizzes

Byzantium Quiz Vocabulary, Form, and Literary Devices

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

Tower

Center

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

An Egyptian pharaoh

The emperor who founded the city of Constantinople

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

Quintains

Sestets

Octaves
4 What does the word "begot" most closely mean?
Created

Tricked

Understood

Possessed
5 What is the poem's form?
Sestina

Sonnet

It does not follow a traditional form

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

Iambic pentameter

Iambic trimeter

Iambic tetrameter
7 What does the word "superhuman" most closely mean?
Possessed of unusual or magical powers

Extremely human-like

Animal-like and instinctive

Very large
8 What is the meter of the line "breathless mouths may summon"?
Iambic trimeter

Trochaic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Dactylic pentameter
9 What does the word "bobbin" most closely mean?
A despotic ruler, especially in the ancient world

A multi-story Ottoman mansion

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

An implement used in sewing and weaving
10 What does the word "shade" most closely mean?
Curtain

Ghost

Tent

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

Clean

Monkey

Opera
12 Which objects are personified in this work?
The domes

The moon

The bobbin

The marbles
13 What does the word "smithies" most closely mean?
Rivers to the underworld

Members of the royal court

Narrow alleyways

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

AABBCDDC

ABBACDDC

ABABCDCD
15 What is the meter of the line "Fresh images beget"?
Iambic trimeter

Trochaic tetrameter

Spondaic pentameter

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

Metaphor

Metonymy

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

Dart

Blink

Hide
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 wormlike creature from Greek myth

An instrument that can be struck to make a ringing sound

A meter that Yeats made up and used in his poetry
20 Which of the following phrases is not alliterative?
"Night resonance recedes"

"moonlit dome disdains"

"mire or blood"

"cannot singe a sleeve"
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 Byzantine and Persian empires

It is a conflict between spiritual and physical existence

It is a conflict between the speaker and the shade
22 To which of the following does Yeats frequent allude in this work?
Easter Orthodox theology

Greek myth

Celtic legend

Ottoman history
23 Which of the following words is an instance of onomatopoeia?
none of these are onomatopoetic

bough

singe

trance
24 The phrase "mire and blood" is a synecdoche representing what?
The physical world

Family

War

The spiritual world
25 How many stanzas does the poem contain?
2

5

4

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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