Byzantium Quizzes

Byzantium Quiz Vocabulary, Form, and Literary Devices

1 What does the word "mire" most closely mean?

Center

Muck

Ocean

Tower
2 Who is Hades?

The Greek god of the underworld

A famous patriarch of the early Orthodox Church

The emperor who founded the city of Constantinople

An Egyptian pharaoh
3 What type of stanzas make up the poem?

Octaves

Tercets

Quintains

Sestets
4 What does the word "begot" most closely mean?

Possessed

Tricked

Created

Understood
5 What is the poem's form?

Villanelle

It does not follow a traditional form

Sonnet

Sestina
6 Which type of meter are most of the poem's lines written in?

Iambic trimeter

Trochaic trimeter

Iambic tetrameter

Iambic pentameter
7 What does the word "superhuman" most closely mean?

Extremely human-like

Animal-like and instinctive

Very large

Possessed of unusual or magical powers
8 What is the meter of the line "breathless mouths may summon"?

Dactylic pentameter

Iambic trimeter

Trochaic trimeter

Iambic pentameter
9 What does the word "bobbin" most closely mean?

A type of ballroom dance popular in the early 20th century

A multi-story Ottoman mansion

A despotic ruler, especially in the ancient world

An implement used in sewing and weaving
10 What does the word "shade" most closely mean?

Tent

Curtain

Night

Ghost
11 What does the word "singe" most closely mean?

Monkey

Opera

Clean

Burn
12 Which objects are personified in this work?

The moon

The bobbin

The domes

The marbles
13 What does the word "smithies" most closely mean?

Members of the royal court

Rivers to the underworld

Narrow alleyways

Metal forgeries
14 What is the rhyme scheme of each stanza?

ABABCDCD

ABBACDDC

AABBCDDC

ABABCBCDC
15 What is the meter of the line "Fresh images beget"?

Spondaic pentameter

Iambic pentameter

Trochaic tetrameter

Iambic trimeter
16 The line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow" contains an instance of what?

Metaphor

Simile

Personification

Metonymy
17 What does the word "flit" most closely mean?

Hide

Equivocate

Dart

Blink
18 What is the meter of the line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow"?

Trochaic tetrameter

Iambic tetrameter

Dactylic pentameter

Trochaic trimeter
19 What does the word "gong" most closely mean?

A meter that Yeats made up and used in his poetry

A type of Byzantine church

An instrument that can be struck to make a ringing sound

A wormlike creature from Greek myth
20 Which of the following phrases is not alliterative?

"moonlit dome disdains"

"cannot singe a sleeve"

"Night resonance recedes"

"mire or blood"
21 Which best describes the poem's conflict?

It is a conflict between the Byzantine and Persian empires

It is a conflict between the speaker and the shade

It is a conflict between the Emperor and his soldiery on the one hand, and everyday citizens on the other

It is a conflict between spiritual and physical existence
22 To which of the following does Yeats frequent allude in this work?

Ottoman history

Celtic legend

Easter Orthodox theology

Greek myth
23 Which of the following words is an instance of onomatopoeia?

none of these are onomatopoetic

bough

trance

singe
24 The phrase "mire and blood" is a synecdoche representing what?

War

Family

The spiritual world

The physical world
25 How many stanzas does the poem contain?

4

2

3

5

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Study Guide for Byzantium

Byzantium study guide contains a biography of William Butler Yeats, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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