Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?
Romantic love

Moral redemption

Artistic inspiration

Spiritual healing
2 What is the poem's major conflict?
The speaker's desire to explore, counter to social expectation

The speaker's inability to decide whether to live a rural or a cosmopolitan life

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 appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm

The reflection of the sky

The sky through a stained-glass window

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?
Caves

Wells

Trees

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

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

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 must care for his family and cannot take risks

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified

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?
Alliteration

Simile

Personification

Understatement
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?
4

5

3

2
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABC CBA

ABAB

ABABAB

ABCBCBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?
Odysseus

Narcissus

Hercules

Persephone
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?
4

3

6

5
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?
Curious

Listless

Industrious

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

Haunting

Frightening

Scarce
14 How does the speaker reconnect to his childhood passions as an adult?
Through family stories and folktales

Through writing poetry

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"?
U's

P's

B's

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

"I savoured the rich crash"

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?
"...a rat slapped across my reflection."

"I savoured the rich crash..."

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

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"
18 Which of the following elements of wells assume the most significance in this poem?
Fluidity and movement

Echoes and reflections

Depth and darkness

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 usually surrounded by religious buildings

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?
The speaker's reflection

The speaker's deceased ancestors

An unidentified wild animal

The spirit of the local holy well
21 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia?
Dank

Crash

Ditch

scaresome
22 For which of the following purposes do people often use holy wells?
Divining the future

Healing the sick

Watering crops

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?
Meter

Enjambment

Metaphor

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

Playful

Nostalgic

Contemplative
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?
To sanctify or devote to a saint

To sweeten

To make something productive

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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