The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Charter or agreement

Complaint

Large dinner party

Excess
2 Which best characterizes this poem?
It focuses on the psyche of the speaker

It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure

It embraces moral ambiguity, leaving readers unsure who to root for

It makes heavy use of figurative language
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

A dictator
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A sugarcane field

A military hospital

A coffee shop

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

ABBACDDCABBACDDC

ABCBAADCD

AABAABABA
6 What is the dictator's palace compared to?
A diamond ring

A teapot

A dog's mouth

A watch face
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
Pablo Neruda

Mark Eisner

W.S. Merwin

Ben Belitt
8 Neruda compares the palace-dwellers to "wineglasses, _____, and piping."
Drumbeats

Gemstones

Collars

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

Anapestic hexameter

Iambic pentameter

It is free verse
10 What does the word "finical" mean?
Picky

Erudite

Multifaceted

Shiny
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?
Industrialization

Religious extremism

Adult cruelty to children

Fascism and authoritarianism
12 How many lines are in this poem?
10

15

17

14
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"The snout filled with silence and slime"

"the blinded, big leaves"

"the plant and its pollen"

"carrion, blood, and a nausea"
14 Which of the following are juxtaposed?
The plant and the pollen

The snout and the bones

Laughter and death

The dictator and his allies
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
A subordinate ruler or official

A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A grand palace

An exclusive, government-sponsored club
16 Which type of sensory imagery is prominent in the poem's opening lines?
Smell imagery

Tactile imagery

Taste imagery

Sound imagery
17 What does the plant most likely symbolize?
The power of the arts

God's abandonment

The refuge of nature

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

Inequality

Evil and oppression

Death
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?
"Vendetta was born"

"Lament was perpetual"

"their festering surfeit of bones"

"A finical satrap conversed"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?
A mouth

A petal

A glove

A plant
21 What does the word "carrion" mean?
A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain

Decaying dead bodies

A type of bird of prey

A battle cry
22 Neruda uses a simile to compare which of the following to a flower petal?
A military medal

A gunshot wound

A flag

The smell of corpses
23 In which era is this poem most likely set?
The 1970s

The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century

The early Medieval period
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?
As frivolous and willfully blind

As sadistic and monstrous

As vulnerable and frightened

As zealous and obsessive
25 What does the word "bludgeon" mean?
Toolbox

Physical blow

Blunt person

Broken-down vehicle

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