Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) Quizzes

Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) Quiz

1 Which device does Millay employ specifically in lines one, three, five, and thirteen?
Metonymy

Metaphor

Anaphora

Alliteration
2 What is the poem's meter?
Anapestic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Dactylic pentameter

Iambic hexameter
3 Why can the speaker be considered an antagonist?
Because she is unconventional and judged by her peers

Because she has unintentionally caused her family to be inconvenienced

Because she is engaged in an internal conflict with herself

Because she has caused emotional pain to her lover
4 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABAB ACAC ABAB CC

ABBA ABBA CDC CDC

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

ABB CDD EFF GHH
5 Who is the poem addressed to?
The speaker's ex-lover

The speaker's pet

The speaker's sibling

The speaker's student
6 Where does the volta take place?
After line twelve

After line eight

After line six

After line four
7 What has happened to upset the speaker?
Her husband has had an affair

Her lover no longer loves her

Her sister has fallen in love with her fiance

Her lover is very sick
8 How does the poem's imagery shift in the work's second half?
Previously calm images are now portrayed as menacing

Images of nature give way to images of urban luxury

Images associated with femininity are replaced with images associated with masculinity

There are almost no concrete images in the poem's second half
9 Which is an example of irony in the poem?
The speaker's acknowledgment that male emotion is unpredictable, though she fights to control her own

The speaker's heartbreak over a man despite Millay's feminist politics

The poem's modernist form, which contrasts with traditional themes and ideas

The speaker's fixation on nature in spite of her urban setting
10 Which word is an instance of metonomy?
You

Heart

Desire

Moon
11 What is the meaning of the word "thicket"?
Group of children

Thick bunch of trees or bushes

Country estate

Stupid person
12 How does this poem fit into Millay's literary career?
It is a persona poem, for which Millay is known

It deviates from the Modernist experimentation Millay usually engaged in

It discusses Millay's childhood in New England, like much of her later work

It is a sonnet, a form Millay often explored
13 How do the poem's last two lines recontextualize the rest of the poem?
By showing that it is the speaker who has caused harm to others

By hinting that the speaker feels pity for her addressee

By revealing the identity of the person to whom the work is addressed

By making clear that the speaker does desire pity of a sort
14 Which important transition takes place during lines 7-8?
The switch from the speaker's words to dialogue

The revelation of the speaker's heartbreak

The transition to a new type of nature imagery

The shift to a nontraditional rhyme scheme
15 What is the meaning of the word "assails"?
Flirts

Sails

Attacks

Interrogates
16 How does the motif of nature function throughout the poem?
By depicting the impermanence of love

By showing how small the speaker's problems are

By portraying the pastoral romance the speaker longs for

By making the speaker's New York life seem alien and sad
17 What form does this poem take?
Shakespearian Sonnet

Petrarchan Sonnet

Italian Sonnet

Spenserian Sonnet
18 How does the poem evoke the themes of transience and impermanence?
Through time jumps between historical eras

Through the slow breakdown of its own formal structure

Through images of death and decay

Through images of cyclical natural events
19 Where in the poem is the theme of gender most explicitly addressed?
Line nine

Line twelve

Line seven

Line two
20 When was this poem published?
1912

1918

1904

1923
21 How does Millay most prominently explore the theme of rationality?
By showing how nature's seemingly random events are actually rational

By portraying her speaker's attempt to rationalize emotions

By evoking images of science and empiricism

By exploring how love and desire disrupt decision-making
22 What is the meaning of the word "gale"?
Angry woman

Makeshift home

Blizzard

Strong wind
23 What is the meaning of the word "wane"?
Undermine

Shine

Strengthen

Diminish
24 What can the night sky best be said to symbolize?
Censorship

Mystery

Emotional emptiness

Freedom
25 The line “And you no longer look with love on me" features alliteration through which sound?
L

A

M

N

Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Ask Your Own Question

Study Guide for Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29)

Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) study guide contains a biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

Read the Study Guide for Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29)…