Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?

Romantic love

Spiritual healing

Moral redemption

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

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

The tension between modernity and local tradition

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

The speaker's parents' hopes for him versus his friends' pressures
3 What does the phrase "the trapped sky" most likely refer to?

The reflection of the sky

The appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm

The sky through a stained-glass window

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?

Caves

Wells

Trees

Ponds
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?

They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

They help him hear and understand himself anew

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

They cause nearby animals to respond
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 realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He must care for his family and cannot take risks
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?

Understatement

Simile

Alliteration

Personification
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

3

2

4

5
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABABAB

ABC CBA

ABCBCBA

ABAB
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?

Hercules

Narcissus

Persephone

Odysseus
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

4

3

6

5
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Industrious

Listless

Curious

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

Jumpy

Scarce

Haunting

Frightening
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"?

U's

P's

B's

S's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

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

"I savoured the rich crash"
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

"As a child, they could not keep me from wells"

"I savoured the rich crash..."

"...a rat slapped across my reflection."
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 often associated with a patron saint

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings

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

The spirit of the local holy well

The speaker's reflection

The speaker's deceased ancestors

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

Crash

Dank

scaresome

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

Healing the sick

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

Divining the future

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

Meter

Metaphor

Rhyme

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

Nostalgic

Bitter

Contemplative

Playful
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?

To make something productive

To sweeten

To rot or decay

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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