Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?

Spiritual healing

Romantic love

Artistic inspiration

Moral redemption
2 What is the poem's major conflict?

The tension between modernity and local tradition

The speaker's desire to explore, counter to social expectation

The speaker's parents' hopes for him versus his friends' pressures

The speaker's inability to decide whether to live a rural or a cosmopolitan life
3 What does the phrase "the trapped sky" most likely refer to?

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

The reflection of the sky

The appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm

The sky through a stained-glass window
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?

Caves

Wells

Ponds

Trees
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?

They make him feel that he is not alone, even in remote places

They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

They cause nearby animals to respond

They help him hear and understand himself anew
6 The speaker implies that he has changed his behavior as an adult for which reason?

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified

He must care for his family and cannot take risks

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?

Understatement

Alliteration

Simile

Personification
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

4

2

3

5
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABAB

ABC CBA

ABABAB

ABCBCBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?

Odysseus

Hercules

Narcissus

Persephone
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

5

4

3

6
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Curious

Industrious

Listless

Kind
13 What is meant by the word "scaresome"?

Haunting

Jumpy

Frightening

Scarce
14 How does the speaker reconnect to his childhood passions as an adult?

Through family stories and folktales

Through writing poetry

Through visiting his old home

Through documenting the sites he once explored
15 Which sound creates assonance in the phrase "pumps with buckets and windlasses"?

P's

U's

B's

S's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?

"To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring"

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

"I savoured the rich crash"

"a rat slapped across my reflection."
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?

"...a rat slapped across my reflection."

"As a child, they could not keep me from wells"

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"

"I savoured the rich crash..."
18 Which of the following elements of wells assume the most significance in this poem?

Echoes and reflections

Depth and darkness

Fluidity and movement

Dirtiness and murkiness
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?

They are often associated with a patron saint

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?

An unidentified wild animal

The speaker's deceased ancestors

The spirit of the local holy well

The speaker's reflection
21 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia?

scaresome

Ditch

Crash

Dank
22 For which of the following purposes do people often use holy wells?

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

Healing the sick

Watering crops

Divining the future
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?

Rhyme

Meter

Metaphor

Enjambment
24 Which does NOT describe the poem's tone?

Nostalgic

Bitter

Contemplative

Playful
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?

To sanctify or devote to a saint

To make something productive

To sweeten

To rot or decay

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Personal Helicon study guide contains a biography of Seamus Heaney, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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