Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?
Moral redemption

Romantic love

Artistic inspiration

Spiritual healing
2 What is the poem's major conflict?
The speaker's inability to decide whether to live a rural or a cosmopolitan life

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

The tension between modernity and local tradition

The speaker's parents' hopes for him versus his friends' pressures
3 What does the phrase "the trapped sky" most likely refer to?
The reflection of the sky

The appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

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

Caves

Ponds

Wells
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?
They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

They help him hear and understand himself anew

They cause nearby animals to respond

They make him feel that he is not alone, even in remote places
6 The speaker implies that he has changed his behavior as an adult for which reason?
He must care for his family and cannot take risks

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?
Personification

Simile

Understatement

Alliteration
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?
5

2

3

4
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABCBCBA

ABABAB

ABAB

ABC CBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?
Hercules

Odysseus

Narcissus

Persephone
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?
6

5

4

3
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 writing poetry

Through family stories and folktales

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through visiting his old home
15 Which sound creates assonance in the phrase "pumps with buckets and windlasses"?
S's

P's

U's

B's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?
"To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring"

"I savoured the rich crash"

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

"a rat slapped across my reflection."
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?
"As a child, they could not keep me from wells"

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

"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?
Depth and darkness

Fluidity and movement

Echoes and reflections

Dirtiness and murkiness
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?
They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are often associated with a patron saint

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?
The speaker's deceased ancestors

The spirit of the local holy well

The speaker's reflection

An unidentified wild animal
21 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia?
Ditch

Crash

Dank

scaresome
22 For which of the following purposes do people often use holy wells?
Watering crops

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

Divining the future

Healing the sick
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?
Metaphor

Meter

Enjambment

Rhyme
24 Which does NOT describe the poem's tone?
Nostalgic

Contemplative

Bitter

Playful
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?
To rot or decay

To sanctify or devote to a saint

To make something productive

To sweeten

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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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