Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?
Moral redemption

Romantic love

Artistic inspiration

Spiritual healing
2 What is the poem's major conflict?
The tension between modernity and local tradition

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 speaker's desire to explore, counter to social expectation
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 adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

The reflection of the sky
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?
Caves

Trees

Ponds

Wells
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?
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

They cause nearby animals to respond
6 The speaker implies that he has changed his behavior as an adult for which reason?
He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He must care for his family and cannot take risks

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?
Simile

Alliteration

Understatement

Personification
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?
2

4

3

5
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABCBCBA

ABC CBA

ABABAB

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

Persephone

Hercules

Narcissus
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?
4

3

5

6
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?
Curious

Industrious

Kind

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

Scarce

Haunting

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

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through visiting his old home

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

P's

B's

S's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?
"To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring"

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

"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."

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

"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?
Echoes and reflections

Dirtiness and murkiness

Fluidity and movement

Depth and darkness
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?
They are often associated with a patron saint

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?
The spirit of the local holy well

The speaker's reflection

An unidentified wild animal

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

scaresome

Ditch

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

Divining the future

Watering crops

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?
Meter

Metaphor

Enjambment

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

Contemplative

Playful

Bitter
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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