The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Complaint

Large dinner party

Charter or agreement

Excess
2 Which best characterizes this poem?
It makes heavy use of figurative language

It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure

It focuses on the psyche of the speaker

It embraces moral ambiguity, leaving readers unsure who to root for
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
A dictator

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A schoolbuilding

A coffee shop

A sugarcane field

A military hospital
5 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABBACDDCABBACDDC

ABCBAADCD

It has no rhyme scheme

AABAABABA
6 What is the dictator's palace compared to?
A dog's mouth

A diamond ring

A teapot

A watch face
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
W.S. Merwin

Pablo Neruda

Ben Belitt

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

Drumbeats

Chocolates

Gemstones
9 What is the poem's meter?
Iambic pentameter

Trochaic trimeter

Anapestic hexameter

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

Erudite

Picky

Shiny
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?
Fascism and authoritarianism

Religious extremism

Adult cruelty to children

Industrialization
12 How many lines are in this poem?
17

14

10

15
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"the plant and its pollen"

"The snout filled with silence and slime"

"the blinded, big leaves"

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

Laughter and death

The snout and the bones

The dictator and his allies
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?
Taste imagery

Tactile imagery

Sound imagery

Smell 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?
Gender

Inequality

Evil and oppression

Death
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?
"Vendetta was born"

"their festering surfeit of bones"

"Lament was perpetual"

"A finical satrap conversed"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?
A plant

A mouth

A petal

A glove
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?
A flag

A gunshot wound

The smell of corpses

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

The 1970s

The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century
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?
Physical blow

Blunt person

Toolbox

Broken-down vehicle

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