Byzantium Quizzes

Byzantium Quiz Vocabulary, Form, and Literary Devices

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

Center

Tower

Muck
2 Who is Hades?
A famous patriarch of the early Orthodox Church

The emperor who founded the city of Constantinople

An Egyptian pharaoh

The Greek god of the underworld
3 What type of stanzas make up the poem?
Quintains

Sestets

Tercets

Octaves
4 What does the word "begot" most closely mean?
Understood

Tricked

Possessed

Created
5 What is the poem's form?
Sestina

Sonnet

It does not follow a traditional form

Villanelle
6 Which type of meter are most of the poem's lines written in?
Iambic tetrameter

Iambic trimeter

Trochaic trimeter

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

Extremely human-like

Animal-like and instinctive

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

Trochaic trimeter

Iambic trimeter

Iambic pentameter
9 What does the word "bobbin" most closely mean?
A multi-story Ottoman mansion

A despotic ruler, especially in the ancient world

An implement used in sewing and weaving

A type of ballroom dance popular in the early 20th century
10 What does the word "shade" most closely mean?
Ghost

Night

Curtain

Tent
11 What does the word "singe" most closely mean?
Clean

Monkey

Opera

Burn
12 Which objects are personified in this work?
The domes

The bobbin

The marbles

The moon
13 What does the word "smithies" most closely mean?
Rivers to the underworld

Narrow alleyways

Metal forgeries

Members of the royal court
14 What is the rhyme scheme of each stanza?
AABBCDDC

ABBACDDC

ABABCBCDC

ABABCDCD
15 What is the meter of the line "Fresh images beget"?
Spondaic pentameter

Iambic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Trochaic tetrameter
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?
Dart

Equivocate

Blink

Hide
18 What is the meter of the line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow"?
Trochaic trimeter

Iambic tetrameter

Dactylic pentameter

Trochaic tetrameter
19 What does the word "gong" most closely mean?
A wormlike creature from Greek myth

An instrument that can be struck to make a ringing sound

A type of Byzantine church

A meter that Yeats made up and used in his poetry
20 Which of the following phrases is not alliterative?
"mire or blood"

"Night resonance recedes"

"moonlit dome disdains"

"cannot singe a sleeve"
21 Which best describes the poem's conflict?
It is a conflict between the Byzantine and Persian empires

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 the speaker and the shade

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

Ottoman history

Celtic legend

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

trance

none of these are onomatopoetic

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

The physical world

Family

The spiritual world
25 How many stanzas does the poem contain?
5

3

4

2

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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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