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?
Alliteration

Anaphora

Metonymy

Metaphor
2 What is the poem's meter?
Iambic pentameter

Iambic hexameter

Anapestic trimeter

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

Because she has unintentionally caused her family to be inconvenienced

Because she has caused emotional pain to her lover

Because she is unconventional and judged by her peers
4 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

ABBA ABBA CDC CDC

ABAB ACAC ABAB CC

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

The speaker's pet

The speaker's sibling

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

After line four

After line eight

After line twelve
7 What has happened to upset the speaker?
Her lover no longer loves her

Her lover is very sick

Her husband has had an affair

Her sister has fallen in love with her fiance
8 How does the poem's imagery shift in the work's second half?
Images of nature give way to images of urban luxury

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

Previously calm images are now portrayed as menacing

Images associated with femininity are replaced with images associated with masculinity
9 Which is an example of irony in the poem?
The speaker's heartbreak over a man despite Millay's feminist politics

The speaker's fixation on nature in spite of her urban setting

The speaker's acknowledgment that male emotion is unpredictable, though she fights to control her own

The poem's modernist form, which contrasts with traditional themes and ideas
10 Which word is an instance of metonomy?
Heart

Desire

You

Moon
11 What is the meaning of the word "thicket"?
Group of children

Country estate

Thick bunch of trees or bushes

Stupid person
12 How does this poem fit into Millay's literary career?
It deviates from the Modernist experimentation Millay usually engaged in

It is a persona poem, for which Millay is known

It is a sonnet, a form Millay often explored

It discusses Millay's childhood in New England, like much of her later work
13 How do the poem's last two lines recontextualize the rest of the poem?
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 making clear that the speaker does desire pity of a sort

By hinting that the speaker feels pity for her addressee
14 Which important transition takes place during lines 7-8?
The switch from the speaker's words to dialogue

The transition to a new type of nature imagery

The revelation of the speaker's heartbreak

The shift to a nontraditional rhyme scheme
15 What is the meaning of the word "assails"?
Interrogates

Flirts

Attacks

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

By depicting the impermanence of love

By showing how small the speaker's problems are

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

Italian Sonnet

Petrarchan Sonnet

Shakespearian 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 images of cyclical natural events

Through time jumps between historical eras
19 Where in the poem is the theme of gender most explicitly addressed?
Line seven

Line twelve

Line two

Line nine
20 When was this poem published?
1904

1918

1923

1912
21 How does Millay most prominently explore the theme of rationality?
By showing how nature's seemingly random events are actually rational

By exploring how love and desire disrupt decision-making

By evoking images of science and empiricism

By portraying her speaker's attempt to rationalize emotions
22 What is the meaning of the word "gale"?
Strong wind

Angry woman

Blizzard

Makeshift home
23 What is the meaning of the word "wane"?
Shine

Diminish

Strengthen

Undermine
24 What can the night sky best be said to symbolize?
Censorship

Mystery

Freedom

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

A

N

M

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