Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?

Spiritual healing

Romantic love

Moral redemption

Artistic inspiration
2 What is the poem's major conflict?

The speaker's inability to decide whether to live a rural or a cosmopolitan life

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
3 What does the phrase "the trapped sky" most likely refer to?

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

The sky through a stained-glass window

The reflection of the sky

The appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?

Trees

Ponds

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 feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

They help him hear and understand himself anew
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 has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He must care for his family and cannot take risks

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

Alliteration

Personification

Understatement

Simile
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

3

2

5

4
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABC CBA

ABABAB

ABAB

ABCBCBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?

Hercules

Narcissus

Odysseus

Persephone
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

5

4

6

3
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Kind

Industrious

Listless

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

Scarce

Frightening

Haunting

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

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through family stories and folktales

Through writing poetry

Through visiting his old home
15 Which sound creates assonance in the phrase "pumps with buckets and windlasses"?

P's

B's

U's

S's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?

"I savoured the rich crash"

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

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

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

"I savoured the rich crash..."

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

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

"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?

Echoes and reflections

Depth and darkness

Fluidity and movement

Dirtiness and murkiness
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are often associated with a patron saint

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?

The speaker's reflection

The spirit of the local holy well

The speaker's deceased ancestors

An unidentified wild animal
21 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia?

scaresome

Ditch

Dank

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

Divining the future

Watering crops

Healing the sick

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?

Rhyme

Enjambment

Metaphor

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

Nostalgic

Bitter

Playful

Contemplative
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?

To sweeten

To rot or decay

To make something productive

To sanctify or devote to a saint

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Personal Helicon study guide contains a biography of Seamus Heaney, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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