The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Large dinner party

Charter or agreement

Excess

Complaint
2 Which best characterizes this poem?
It embraces moral ambiguity, leaving readers unsure who to root for

It makes heavy use of figurative language

It focuses on the psyche of the speaker

It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

A dictator

An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A coffee shop

A military hospital

A sugarcane field

A schoolbuilding
5 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
It has no rhyme scheme

AABAABABA

ABBACDDCABBACDDC

ABCBAADCD
6 What is the dictator's palace compared to?
A watch face

A diamond ring

A teapot

A dog's mouth
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
Mark Eisner

W.S. Merwin

Ben Belitt

Pablo Neruda
8 Neruda compares the palace-dwellers to "wineglasses, _____, and piping."
Gemstones

Chocolates

Drumbeats

Collars
9 What is the poem's meter?
Trochaic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

It is free verse

Anapestic hexameter
10 What does the word "finical" mean?
Picky

Multifaceted

Erudite

Shiny
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?
Fascism and authoritarianism

Religious extremism

Industrialization

Adult cruelty to children
12 How many lines are in this poem?
14

10

17

15
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"the blinded, big leaves"

"The snout filled with silence and slime"

"carrion, blood, and a nausea"

"the plant and its pollen"
14 Which of the following are juxtaposed?
Laughter and death

The plant and the pollen

The dictator and his allies

The snout and the bones
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
An exclusive, government-sponsored club

A subordinate ruler or official

A grand palace

A type of trap used to catch mice and rats
16 Which type of sensory imagery is prominent in the poem's opening lines?
Sound imagery

Smell imagery

Taste imagery

Tactile imagery
17 What does the plant most likely symbolize?
The refuge of nature

God's abandonment

The power of the arts

Life under dictatorship
18 Which is NOT one of the poem's themes?
Inequality

Gender

Evil and oppression

Death
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?
"their festering surfeit of bones"

"Lament was perpetual"

"A finical satrap conversed"

"Vendetta was born"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?
A petal

A plant

A glove

A mouth
21 What does the word "carrion" mean?
Decaying dead bodies

A type of bird of prey

A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain

A battle cry
22 Neruda uses a simile to compare which of the following to a flower petal?
The smell of corpses

A gunshot wound

A military medal

A flag
23 In which era is this poem most likely set?
The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century

The 1970s

The early Medieval period
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?
As sadistic and monstrous

As zealous and obsessive

As vulnerable and frightened

As frivolous and willfully blind
25 What does the word "bludgeon" mean?
Physical blow

Toolbox

Blunt person

Broken-down vehicle

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