Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

By Eleanor Stern · Edited by James Cooper · Last reviewed November 05, 2021

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?

Moral redemption

Spiritual healing

Artistic inspiration

Romantic love
2 What is the poem's major conflict?

The speaker's desire to explore, counter to social expectation

The speaker's parents' hopes for him versus his friends' pressures

The tension between modernity and local tradition

The speaker's inability to decide whether to live a rural or a cosmopolitan life
3 What does the phrase "the trapped sky" most likely refer to?

The appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

The sky through a stained-glass window

The reflection of the sky
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?

Ponds

Trees

Caves

Wells
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?

They make him feel that he is not alone, even in remote places

They cause nearby animals to respond

They help him hear and understand himself anew

They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings
6 The speaker implies that he has changed his behavior as an adult for which reason?

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified

He must care for his family and cannot take risks

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?

Personification

Alliteration

Simile

Understatement
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

5

2

4

3
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABC CBA

ABAB

ABABAB

ABCBCBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?

Odysseus

Persephone

Hercules

Narcissus
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

4

5

6

3
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Curious

Kind

Listless

Industrious
13 What is meant by the word "scaresome"?

Scarce

Haunting

Frightening

Jumpy
14 How does the speaker reconnect to his childhood passions as an adult?

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through visiting his old home

Through family stories and folktales

Through writing poetry
15 Which sound creates assonance in the phrase "pumps with buckets and windlasses"?

S's

P's

U's

B's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

"To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring"

"I savoured the rich crash"

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?

"...a rat slapped across my reflection."

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

"I savoured the rich crash..."

"As a child, they could not keep me from wells"
18 Which of the following elements of wells assume the most significance in this poem?

Fluidity and movement

Dirtiness and murkiness

Echoes and reflections

Depth and darkness
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?

They are often associated with a patron saint

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?

The speaker's deceased ancestors

The spirit of the local holy well

An unidentified wild animal

The speaker's reflection
21 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia?

Ditch

Crash

scaresome

Dank
22 For which of the following purposes do people often use holy wells?

Divining the future

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

Healing the sick

Watering crops
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?

Enjambment

Metaphor

Meter

Rhyme
24 Which does NOT describe the poem's tone?

Contemplative

Playful

Bitter

Nostalgic
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?

To sweeten

To make something productive

To sanctify or devote to a saint

To rot or decay

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