The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Excess

Complaint

Large dinner party

Charter or agreement
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 follows an elaborate, complex formal structure

It focuses on the psyche of the speaker
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

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

A military hospital

A coffee shop

A sugarcane field
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?
Ben Belitt

W.S. Merwin

Pablo Neruda

Mark Eisner
8 Neruda compares the palace-dwellers to "wineglasses, _____, and piping."
Chocolates

Drumbeats

Gemstones

Collars
9 What is the poem's meter?
Anapestic hexameter

Trochaic trimeter

It is free verse

Iambic pentameter
10 What does the word "finical" mean?
Erudite

Multifaceted

Picky

Shiny
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?
10

17

14

15
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"carrion, blood, and a nausea"

"the plant and its pollen"

"the blinded, big leaves"

"The snout filled with silence and slime"
14 Which of the following are juxtaposed?
The snout and the bones

Laughter and death

The dictator and his allies

The plant and the pollen
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
A subordinate ruler or official

A grand palace

An exclusive, government-sponsored club

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

Tactile imagery

Smell imagery

Taste imagery
17 What does the plant most likely symbolize?
God's abandonment

Life under dictatorship

The power of the arts

The refuge of nature
18 Which is NOT one of the poem's themes?
Evil and oppression

Inequality

Gender

Death
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?
"Lament was perpetual"

"their festering surfeit of bones"

"A finical satrap conversed"

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

A petal

A plant

A mouth
21 What does the word "carrion" mean?
A type of bird of prey

Decaying dead bodies

A battle cry

A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain
22 Neruda uses a simile to compare which of the following to a flower petal?
A military medal

A flag

A gunshot wound

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

The late eighteenth century

The mid-twentieth century

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

As vulnerable and frightened

As frivolous and willfully blind

As zealous and obsessive
25 What does the word "bludgeon" mean?
Broken-down vehicle

Blunt person

Physical blow

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