Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?
Moral redemption

Romantic love

Spiritual healing

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 sky through a stained-glass window

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

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?
Wells

Trees

Caves

Ponds
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?
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

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 realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified

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

Personification

Simile

Alliteration
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?
5

4

2

3
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABC CBA

ABAB

ABCBCBA

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

Hercules

Persephone

Narcissus
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?
5

3

4

6
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?
Kind

Industrious

Curious

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

Jumpy

Haunting

Frightening
14 How does the speaker reconnect to his childhood passions as an adult?
Through visiting his old home

Through writing poetry

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through family stories and folktales
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?
"I savoured the rich crash"

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

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?
"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

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

"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?
Depth and darkness

Dirtiness and murkiness

Echoes and reflections

Fluidity and movement
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?
scaresome

Dank

Crash

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

Divining the future

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

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

Enjambment

Rhyme

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

Contemplative

Playful

Bitter
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?
To make something productive

To sanctify or devote to a saint

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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