The Circus Animals’ Desertion Quizzes

The Circus Animals' Desertion Quiz

1 Which is not a characteristic of the carnivalesque?
Order

Performance

Ephemerality

Transgression
2 What was Yeats's first published work (outside of magazines)?
The Second Coming

The Wanderings of Oisin

The Countess Cathleen

The Faerie Queene
3 What mythological land does this poem reference?
The Upside Down

Faerie

Narnia

Oisin
4 What is the speaker searching for in vain?
A quest

Love

Home

A theme
5 Which is not one of the enchanted islands?
Vain gaiety

Vain repose

Vain romance

Vain battle
6 Which does not take the speaker's love?
The Irish landscape

The fairy bride

The painted stage

The dream
7 Which of these characters was Yeats' own creation?
Cuchulain

The Countess Cathleen

The Fool

Oisin
8 The Fool and the Blind Man are from what?
Yeats' imagination

Tarot

Christianity

Helena Blavatsky's occultism
9 What does "burnished" mean?
Gilded

Rusty

Polished

Burnt
10 Which is not a central theme of "The Circus Animals' Desertion"?
Aging

Undying love

Dreams versus reality

Inspiration
11 When was "The Circus Animals' Desertion" published?
1917

1989

1901

1939
12 Which artistic transition is Yeats' poetry often understood to mark?
Romanticism to modernism

Capitalism to communism

Individualism to collectivism

Nihilism to romanticism
13 Who was Yeats' longtime unrequited love?
Juliet Capulet

The fairy bride

The Countess Cathleen

Maud Gonne
14 What was Maud Gonne's principal cause?
Feminism

Socialism

Irish nationalism

Animal rights
15 Yeats was most interested in what form of thought and belief?
Christianity

Nihilism

Esoteric Judaism

Occultism
16 Who originated the term carnivalesque?
Helena Blavatsky

Fyodor Dostoevsky

William Butler Yeats

Mikhail Bakhtin
17 "The Circus Animals' Desertion" was written during what part of Yeats' career?
The end

The middle

Unknown

The beginning
18 Which poem shares "The Circus Animals' Desertion"'s poetic structure?
"The Song of Wandering Aengus"

"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

"Sailing to Byzantium"

"The Second Coming"
19 What is the poetic structure of "The Circus Animals' Desertion"?
Anapestic trimeter

Dactylic hexameter

Trochaic tetrameter

Iambic pentamenter
20 In what year did Yeats die?
1942

1967

1916

1939
21 Which artistic tendency does "The Circus Animals' Desertion" NOT fit into?
Romanticism

Classicism

Modernism

Postmodernism
22 What is a central argument of "The Circus Animals' Desertion"?
There is a better reality beyond this one

Yeats regrets his past writings

Ideas and mythologies are illusions, and reality is cold and destitute

The world is changing irreversibly
23 Cuchulain was...
A Norse god

A mythological trickster

An ancient Celtic hero

An Irish saint
24 How long was Yeats searching for a theme?
Six days or so

Five lives or so

Six weeks or so

Six years or so
25 Where was Yeats from?
Ireland

Scotland

Northern Ireland

England

The Circus Animals’ Desertion Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Circus Animals’ Desertion is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Ask Your Own Question

Study Guide for The Circus Animals’ Desertion

The Circus Animals' Desertion study guide contains a biography of William Butler Yeats, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

Read the Study Guide for The Circus Animals’ Desertion…

Essays for The Circus Animals’ Desertion

The Circus Animals' Desertion essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Circus Animals' Desertion by William Butler Yeats.

Yeats & The Circus Mind in “The Circus Animals’ Desertion”