The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Complaint

Charter or agreement

Large dinner party

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

It makes heavy use of figurative language

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

It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

A dictator

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

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

A sugarcane field

A military hospital

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

ABBACDDCABBACDDC

AABAABABA

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?
Pablo Neruda

Mark Eisner

Ben Belitt

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

Drumbeats

Gemstones

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

Iambic pentameter

It is free verse

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

Shiny

Erudite

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

Adult cruelty to children

Religious extremism

Fascism and authoritarianism
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"

"carrion, blood, and a nausea"

"the plant and its pollen"
14 Which of the following are juxtaposed?
The snout and the bones

The plant and the pollen

Laughter and death

The dictator and his allies
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
An exclusive, government-sponsored club

A grand palace

A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A subordinate ruler or official
16 Which type of sensory imagery is prominent in the poem's opening lines?
Smell imagery

Taste imagery

Sound imagery

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

God's abandonment

Life under dictatorship

The power of the arts
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?
"their festering surfeit of bones"

"Lament was perpetual"

"A finical satrap conversed"

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

A glove

A plant

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

A battle cry

A type of bird of prey

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 gunshot wound

A flag

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

The mid-twentieth century

The early Medieval period

The 1970s
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?
Physical blow

Toolbox

Broken-down vehicle

Blunt person

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