The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Complaint

Charter or agreement

Excess

Large dinner party
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?
A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker

A dictator
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A military hospital

A schoolbuilding

A sugarcane field

A coffee shop
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 diamond ring

A watch face

A teapot

A dog's mouth
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
W.S. Merwin

Pablo Neruda

Mark Eisner

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

Drumbeats

Chocolates

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

Iambic pentameter

Anapestic hexameter

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

Shiny

Picky

Multifaceted
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?
Religious extremism

Fascism and authoritarianism

Adult cruelty to children

Industrialization
12 How many lines are in this poem?
14

10

15

17
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"the blinded, big leaves"

"the plant and its pollen"

"The snout filled with silence and slime"

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

Laughter and death

The plant and the pollen

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

An exclusive, government-sponsored club

A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A grand palace
16 Which type of sensory imagery is prominent in the poem's opening lines?
Tactile imagery

Taste imagery

Smell imagery

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

The power of the arts

Life under dictatorship

God's abandonment
18 Which is NOT one of the poem's themes?
Gender

Death

Inequality

Evil and oppression
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?
"A finical satrap conversed"

"Lament was perpetual"

"Vendetta was born"

"their festering surfeit of bones"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?
A plant

A glove

A petal

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

A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain

A battle cry

A type of bird of prey
22 Neruda uses a simile to compare which of the following to a flower petal?
The smell of corpses

A military medal

A gunshot wound

A flag
23 In which era is this poem most likely set?
The early Medieval period

The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century

The 1970s
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?
As vulnerable and frightened

As frivolous and willfully blind

As sadistic and monstrous

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

Broken-down vehicle

Toolbox

Physical blow

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