Byzantium Quizzes

Byzantium Quiz Vocabulary, Form, and Literary Devices

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

Ocean

Center

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

An Egyptian pharaoh

The emperor who founded the city of Constantinople

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

Octaves

Quintains

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

Understood

Created

Possessed
5 What is the poem's form?
Sestina

Sonnet

Villanelle

It does not follow a traditional form
6 Which type of meter are most of the poem's lines written in?
Iambic trimeter

Iambic tetrameter

Iambic pentameter

Trochaic trimeter
7 What does the word "superhuman" most closely mean?
Possessed of unusual or magical powers

Extremely human-like

Animal-like and instinctive

Very large
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 despotic ruler, especially in the ancient world

A multi-story Ottoman mansion

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

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

Night

Ghost

Curtain
11 What does the word "singe" most closely mean?
Monkey

Opera

Burn

Clean
12 Which objects are personified in this work?
The bobbin

The domes

The moon

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

Members of the royal court

Rivers to the underworld

Narrow alleyways
14 What is the rhyme scheme of each stanza?
AABBCDDC

ABABCDCD

ABABCBCDC

ABBACDDC
15 What is the meter of the line "Fresh images beget"?
Iambic pentameter

Trochaic tetrameter

Iambic trimeter

Spondaic pentameter
16 The line "Can like the cocks of Hades crow" contains an instance of what?
Metaphor

Metonymy

Personification

Simile
17 What does the word "flit" most closely mean?
Blink

Equivocate

Hide

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

Dactylic pentameter

Iambic tetrameter

Trochaic tetrameter
19 What does the word "gong" most closely mean?
A type of Byzantine church

A meter that Yeats made up and used in his poetry

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"

"Night resonance recedes"

"cannot singe a sleeve"

"mire or blood"
21 Which best describes the poem's conflict?
It is a conflict between spiritual and physical existence

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
22 To which of the following does Yeats frequent allude in this work?
Ottoman history

Easter Orthodox theology

Greek myth

Celtic legend
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?
The physical world

The spiritual world

War

Family
25 How many stanzas does the poem contain?
2

4

5

3

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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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