Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?

Artistic inspiration

Spiritual healing

Romantic love

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

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

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

The tension between modernity and local tradition

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 reflection of the sky

The sky through a stained-glass window

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

The appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?

Trees

Ponds

Caves

Wells
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?

They cause nearby animals to respond

They help him hear and understand himself anew

They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

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 realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?

Understatement

Personification

Alliteration

Simile
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?

5

3

4

2
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?

ABAB

ABABAB

ABCBCBA

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

Odysseus

Persephone

Narcissus

Hercules
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?

4

6

5

3
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?

Kind

Curious

Listless

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

Frightening

Scarce

Jumpy

Haunting
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"

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

"I savoured the rich crash"
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?

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

"I savoured the rich crash..."

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

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

Echoes and reflections

Fluidity and movement

Dirtiness and murkiness

Depth and darkness
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings

They are often associated with a patron saint

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 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?

Crash

Ditch

scaresome

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

Healing the sick

Watering crops

Divining the future

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

Meter

Metaphor

Rhyme

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

Nostalgic

Contemplative

Playful

Bitter
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?

To make something productive

To sweeten

To rot or decay

To sanctify or devote to a saint

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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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