Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?

Spiritual healing

Artistic inspiration

Romantic love

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

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

The tension between modernity and local tradition

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
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

Trees

Ponds

Caves
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?

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

They help him hear and understand himself anew

They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

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 must care for his family and cannot take risks

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

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

Personification

Simile

Understatement

Alliteration
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

3

5

2

4
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABCBCBA

ABABAB

ABC CBA

ABAB
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?

Narcissus

Hercules

Persephone

Odysseus
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

6

4

5

3
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Curious

Listless

Kind

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

Frightening

Haunting

Jumpy

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

Through visiting his old home

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through family stories and folktales

Through writing poetry
15 Which sound creates assonance in the phrase "pumps with buckets and windlasses"?

B's

P's

S's

U's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

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

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

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

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

"I savoured the rich crash..."

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

"...a rat slapped across my reflection."
18 Which of the following elements of wells assume the most significance in this poem?

Fluidity and movement

Dirtiness and murkiness

Echoes and reflections

Depth and darkness
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings

They are often associated with a patron saint
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?

An unidentified wild animal

The spirit of the local holy well

The speaker's deceased ancestors

The speaker's reflection
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?

Watering crops

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

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?

Bitter

Playful

Nostalgic

Contemplative
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?

To make something productive

To rot or decay

To sweeten

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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