Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) Quizzes

Pity Me Not (Sonnet 29) Quiz

By Eleanor Stern · Edited by James Cooper · Last reviewed March 15, 2022

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

Metaphor

Anaphora

Alliteration

Metonymy
2 What is the poem's meter?

Iambic hexameter

Anapestic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

Dactylic pentameter
3 Why can the speaker be considered an antagonist?

Because she has unintentionally caused her family to be inconvenienced

Because she is unconventional and judged by her peers

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?

ABB CDD EFF GHH

ABBA ABBA CDC CDC

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

ABAB ACAC ABAB CC
5 Who is the poem addressed to?

The speaker's student

The speaker's pet

The speaker's ex-lover

The speaker's sibling
6 Where does the volta take place?

After line eight

After line four

After line twelve

After line six
7 What has happened to upset the speaker?

Her lover no longer loves her

Her lover is very sick

Her sister has fallen in love with her fiance

Her husband has had an affair
8 How does the poem's imagery shift in the work's second half?

There are almost no concrete images in the poem's second half

Images associated with femininity are replaced with images associated with masculinity

Images of nature give way to images of urban luxury

Previously calm images are now portrayed as menacing
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 fixation on nature in spite of her urban setting

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

The poem's modernist form, which contrasts with traditional themes and ideas
10 Which word is an instance of metonomy?

Heart

Moon

You

Desire
11 What is the meaning of the word "thicket"?

Country estate

Stupid person

Thick bunch of trees or bushes

Group of children
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 hinting that the speaker feels pity for her addressee

By showing that it is the speaker who has caused harm to others

By making clear that the speaker does desire pity of a sort

By revealing the identity of the person to whom the work is addressed
14 Which important transition takes place during lines 7-8?

The revelation of the speaker's heartbreak

The transition to a new type of nature imagery

The switch from the speaker's words to dialogue

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

Attacks

Interrogates

Sails

Flirts
16 How does the motif of nature function throughout the poem?

By depicting the impermanence of love

By portraying the pastoral romance the speaker longs for

By showing how small the speaker's problems are

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

Italian Sonnet

Petrarchan Sonnet

Spenserian Sonnet

Shakespearian Sonnet
18 How does the poem evoke the themes of transience and impermanence?

Through images of death and decay

Through images of cyclical natural events

Through the slow breakdown of its own formal structure

Through time jumps between historical eras
19 Where in the poem is the theme of gender most explicitly addressed?

Line nine

Line two

Line twelve

Line seven
20 When was this poem published?

1923

1904

1912

1918
21 How does Millay most prominently explore the theme of rationality?

By exploring how love and desire disrupt decision-making

By showing how nature's seemingly random events are actually rational

By evoking images of science and empiricism

By portraying her speaker's attempt to rationalize emotions
22 What is the meaning of the word "gale"?

Angry woman

Blizzard

Makeshift home

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

Diminish

Undermine

Strengthen

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

Freedom

Mystery

Censorship

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

M

L

N

A

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