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 inability to decide whether to live a rural or a cosmopolitan life

The tension between modernity and local tradition

The speaker's parents' hopes for him versus his friends' pressures

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

Trees

Wells

Caves

Ponds
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?

They cause nearby animals to respond

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
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?

Alliteration

Understatement

Personification

Simile
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

3

5

2

4
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABC CBA

ABABAB

ABAB

ABCBCBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?

Odysseus

Persephone

Narcissus

Hercules
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

3

4

6

5
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Industrious

Kind

Listless

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

Jumpy

Haunting

Frightening

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

Through writing poetry

Through visiting his old home

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"?

B's

U's

S's

P's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?

"I savoured the rich crash"

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

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

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

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

"I savoured the rich crash..."

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

"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?

Fluidity and movement

Echoes and reflections

Depth and darkness

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

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools

They are often associated with a patron saint
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?

Ditch

Dank

Crash

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

Divining the future

Healing the sick

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

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

Enjambment

Rhyme

Meter

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

Bitter

Nostalgic

Contemplative

Playful
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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