Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?
Moral redemption

Artistic inspiration

Spiritual healing

Romantic love
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 parents' hopes for him versus his friends' pressures

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 sky through a stained-glass window

The reflection of the sky

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

Ponds

Caves

Trees
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?
They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

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
6 The speaker implies that he has changed his behavior as an adult for which reason?
He must care for his family and cannot take risks

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?
Alliteration

Simile

Understatement

Personification
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?
2

5

4

3
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABABAB

ABC CBA

ABAB

ABCBCBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?
Odysseus

Narcissus

Persephone

Hercules
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?
4

5

3

6
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?
Curious

Kind

Industrious

Listless
13 What is meant by the word "scaresome"?
Frightening

Jumpy

Haunting

Scarce
14 How does the speaker reconnect to his childhood passions as an adult?
Through family stories and folktales

Through visiting his old home

Through writing poetry

Through documenting the sites he once explored
15 Which sound creates assonance in the phrase "pumps with buckets and windlasses"?
S's

B's

U's

P's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?
"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

"I savoured the rich crash"

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

"a rat slapped across my reflection."
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?
"I savoured the rich crash..."

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

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

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"
18 Which of the following elements of wells assume the most significance in this poem?
Depth and darkness

Echoes and reflections

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

An unidentified wild animal

The speaker's deceased ancestors

The spirit of the local holy well
21 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia?
Ditch

Crash

Dank

scaresome
22 For which of the following purposes do people often use holy wells?
Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

Watering crops

Healing the sick

Divining the future
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?
Metaphor

Rhyme

Enjambment

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

Contemplative

Bitter

Nostalgic
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?
To sanctify or devote to a saint

To make something productive

To sweeten

To rot or decay

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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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