Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?

Romantic love

Spiritual healing

Artistic inspiration

Moral redemption
2 What is the poem's major conflict?

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

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

The tension between modernity and local tradition
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 adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

The sky through a stained-glass window
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?

Trees

Wells

Ponds

Caves
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?

They cause nearby animals to respond

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

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 realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He must care for his family and cannot take risks

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

Simile

Personification

Understatement

Alliteration
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

2

5

4

3
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABCBCBA

ABABAB

ABC CBA

ABAB
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?

Persephone

Hercules

Odysseus

Narcissus
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

6

3

5

4
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Listless

Curious

Industrious

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

Frightening

Scarce

Haunting

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

Through visiting his old home

Through writing poetry

Through family stories and folktales

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

U's

S's

P's

B's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

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

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

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

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

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

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

"I savoured the rich crash..."
18 Which of the following elements of wells assume the most significance in this poem?

Depth and darkness

Fluidity and movement

Dirtiness and murkiness

Echoes and reflections
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 spirit of the local holy well

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

scaresome

Crash

Ditch

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

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

Healing the sick

Divining the future

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

Metaphor

Enjambment

Meter

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

Playful

Nostalgic

Bitter

Contemplative
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?

To make something productive

To sanctify or devote to a saint

To rot or decay

To sweeten

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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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