Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) Quizzes

Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) Quiz

1 Which device does Millay employ specifically in lines one, three, five, and thirteen?
Metonymy

Alliteration

Metaphor

Anaphora
2 What is the poem's meter?
Iambic hexameter

Anapestic trimeter

Dactylic pentameter

Iambic pentameter
3 Why can the speaker be considered an antagonist?
Because she is engaged in an internal conflict with herself

Because she is unconventional and judged by her peers

Because she has unintentionally caused her family to be inconvenienced

Because she has caused emotional pain to her lover
4 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

ABAB ACAC ABAB CC

ABBA ABBA CDC CDC

ABB CDD EFF GHH
5 Who is the poem addressed to?
The speaker's sibling

The speaker's pet

The speaker's student

The speaker's ex-lover
6 Where does the volta take place?
After line twelve

After line four

After line six

After line eight
7 What has happened to upset the speaker?
Her sister has fallen in love with her fiance

Her lover is very sick

Her lover no longer loves her

Her husband has had an affair
8 How does the poem's imagery shift in the work's second half?
Images associated with femininity are replaced with images associated with masculinity

There are almost no concrete images in the poem's second half

Previously calm images are now portrayed as menacing

Images of nature give way to images of urban luxury
9 Which is an example of irony in the poem?
The speaker's fixation on nature in spite of her urban setting

The poem's modernist form, which contrasts with traditional themes and ideas

The speaker's heartbreak over a man despite Millay's feminist politics

The speaker's acknowledgment that male emotion is unpredictable, though she fights to control her own
10 Which word is an instance of metonomy?
Desire

Moon

You

Heart
11 What is the meaning of the word "thicket"?
Country estate

Thick bunch of trees or bushes

Group of children

Stupid person
12 How does this poem fit into Millay's literary career?
It is a sonnet, a form Millay often explored

It is a persona poem, for which Millay is known

It discusses Millay's childhood in New England, like much of her later work

It deviates from the Modernist experimentation Millay usually engaged in
13 How do the poem's last two lines recontextualize the rest of the poem?
By making clear that the speaker does desire pity of a sort

By revealing the identity of the person to whom the work is addressed

By showing that it is the speaker who has caused harm to others

By hinting that the speaker feels pity for her addressee
14 Which important transition takes place during lines 7-8?
The shift to a nontraditional rhyme scheme

The revelation of the speaker's heartbreak

The transition to a new type of nature imagery

The switch from the speaker's words to dialogue
15 What is the meaning of the word "assails"?
Interrogates

Sails

Attacks

Flirts
16 How does the motif of nature function throughout the poem?
By making the speaker's New York life seem alien and sad

By showing how small the speaker's problems are

By depicting the impermanence of love

By portraying the pastoral romance the speaker longs for
17 What form does this poem take?
Spenserian Sonnet

Italian Sonnet

Shakespearian Sonnet

Petrarchan Sonnet
18 How does the poem evoke the themes of transience and impermanence?
Through the slow breakdown of its own formal structure

Through images of death and decay

Through time jumps between historical eras

Through images of cyclical natural events
19 Where in the poem is the theme of gender most explicitly addressed?
Line nine

Line seven

Line two

Line twelve
20 When was this poem published?
1904

1923

1912

1918
21 How does Millay most prominently explore the theme of rationality?
By showing how nature's seemingly random events are actually rational

By portraying her speaker's attempt to rationalize emotions

By exploring how love and desire disrupt decision-making

By evoking images of science and empiricism
22 What is the meaning of the word "gale"?
Strong wind

Makeshift home

Angry woman

Blizzard
23 What is the meaning of the word "wane"?
Diminish

Strengthen

Undermine

Shine
24 What can the night sky best be said to symbolize?
Freedom

Emotional emptiness

Mystery

Censorship
25 The line “And you no longer look with love on me" features alliteration through which sound?
M

N

L

A

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