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 tension between modernity and local tradition

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

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
3 What does the phrase "the trapped sky" most likely refer to?
The reflection of the sky

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes

The sky through a stained-glass window

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

Trees

Ponds

Wells
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?
They help him hear and understand himself anew

They cause nearby animals to respond

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 has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He must care for his family and cannot take risks
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?
3

2

5

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

ABCBCBA

ABC CBA

ABAB
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?
Persephone

Narcissus

Hercules

Odysseus
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?
5

4

3

6
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?
Kind

Curious

Listless

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

Scarce

Jumpy

Frightening
14 How does the speaker reconnect to his childhood passions as an adult?
Through writing poetry

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through family stories and folktales

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

P's

S's

U's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?
"I savoured the rich crash"

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

"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."

"I savoured the rich crash..."

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

Depth and darkness

Fluidity and movement

Echoes and reflections
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 speaker's reflection

The spirit of the local holy well

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

scaresome

Ditch

Dank
22 For which of the following purposes do people often use holy wells?
Cleaning spiritually unclean objects

Divining the future

Watering crops

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

Metaphor

Enjambment

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

Playful

Nostalgic

Contemplative
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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