The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

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

Large dinner party

Complaint

Excess
2 Which best characterizes this poem?
It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure

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

It focuses on the psyche of the speaker

It makes heavy use of figurative language
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker

A dictator

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A military hospital

A schoolbuilding

A coffee shop

A sugarcane field
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 teapot

A dog's mouth

A diamond ring

A watch face
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
Ben Belitt

Pablo Neruda

Mark Eisner

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

Gemstones

Chocolates

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

Anapestic hexameter

It is free verse

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

Erudite

Shiny

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

Religious extremism

Fascism and authoritarianism

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

15

17

10
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"the plant and its pollen"

"the blinded, big leaves"

"carrion, blood, and a nausea"

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

The dictator and his allies

The snout and the bones

The plant and the pollen
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A subordinate ruler or official

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

Sound imagery

Taste imagery
17 What does the plant most likely symbolize?
Life under dictatorship

The refuge of nature

God's abandonment

The power of the arts
18 Which is NOT one of the poem's themes?
Gender

Evil and oppression

Death

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

"A finical satrap conversed"

"Vendetta was born"

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

A plant

A mouth

A petal
21 What does the word "carrion" mean?
A battle cry

A type of bird of prey

Decaying dead bodies

A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain
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 early Medieval period

The mid-twentieth century

The 1970s

The late eighteenth century
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?
As vulnerable and frightened

As zealous and obsessive

As frivolous and willfully blind

As sadistic and monstrous
25 What does the word "bludgeon" mean?
Broken-down vehicle

Physical blow

Blunt person

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