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 focuses on the psyche of the speaker

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

It makes heavy use of figurative language

It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?

A dictator

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

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

A military hospital

A sugarcane field

A coffee shop

A schoolbuilding
5 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

AABAABABA

ABCBAADCD

ABBACDDCABBACDDC

It has no rhyme scheme
6 What is the dictator's palace compared to?

A watch face

A teapot

A diamond ring

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

Pablo Neruda

Ben Belitt

Mark Eisner

W.S. Merwin
8 Neruda compares the palace-dwellers to "wineglasses, _____, and piping."

Gemstones

Collars

Drumbeats

Chocolates
9 What is the poem's meter?

Iambic pentameter

Trochaic trimeter

It is free verse

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

Multifaceted

Picky

Shiny

Erudite
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?

Adult cruelty to children

Fascism and authoritarianism

Industrialization

Religious extremism
12 How many lines are in this poem?

17

15

10

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 dictator and his allies

The plant and the pollen

The snout and the bones

Laughter and death
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?

Smell imagery

Tactile imagery

Sound imagery

Taste imagery
17 What does the plant most likely symbolize?

God's abandonment

The power of the arts

The refuge of nature

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

Gender

Inequality

Death

Evil and oppression
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?

"Vendetta was born"

"A finical satrap conversed"

"their festering surfeit of bones"

"Lament was perpetual"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?

A plant

A petal

A mouth

A glove
21 What does the word "carrion" mean?

A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain

Decaying dead bodies

A battle cry

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

A flag

A military medal

A gunshot wound

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

The 1970s

The early Medieval period

The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?

As zealous and obsessive

As sadistic and monstrous

As frivolous and willfully blind

As vulnerable and frightened
25 What does the word "bludgeon" mean?

Physical blow

Broken-down vehicle

Blunt person

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