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?
Metaphor

Alliteration

Metonymy

Anaphora
2 What is the poem's meter?
Dactylic pentameter

Iambic pentameter

Iambic hexameter

Anapestic trimeter
3 Why can the speaker be considered an antagonist?
Because she has caused emotional pain to her lover

Because she has unintentionally caused her family to be inconvenienced

Because she is engaged in an internal conflict with herself

Because she is unconventional and judged by her peers
4 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABAB ACAC ABAB CC

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

ABB CDD EFF GHH

ABBA ABBA CDC CDC
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 four

After line eight

After line twelve

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

Her sister has fallen in love with her fiance

Her lover no longer loves her

Her lover is very sick
8 How does the poem's imagery shift in the work's second half?
Images of nature give way to images of urban luxury

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

Previously calm images are now portrayed as menacing

Images associated with femininity are replaced with images associated with masculinity
9 Which is an example of irony in the poem?
The speaker's fixation on nature in spite of her urban setting

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
10 Which word is an instance of metonomy?
Heart

Desire

You

Moon
11 What is the meaning of the word "thicket"?
Thick bunch of trees or bushes

Group of children

Stupid person

Country estate
12 How does this poem fit into Millay's literary career?
It is a sonnet, a form Millay often explored

It is a persona poem, for which Millay is known

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

It deviates from the Modernist experimentation Millay usually engaged in
13 How do the poem's last two lines recontextualize the rest of the poem?
By revealing the identity of the person to whom the work is addressed

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

By hinting that the speaker feels pity for her addressee

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 shift to a nontraditional rhyme scheme

The revelation of the speaker's heartbreak

The transition to a new type of nature imagery
15 What is the meaning of the word "assails"?
Sails

Flirts

Attacks

Interrogates
16 How does the motif of nature function throughout the poem?
By portraying the pastoral romance the speaker longs for

By depicting the impermanence of love

By making the speaker's New York life seem alien and sad

By showing how small the speaker's problems are
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 images of death and decay

Through time jumps between historical eras

Through the slow breakdown of its own formal structure

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

Line twelve

Line nine

Line seven
20 When was this poem published?
1918

1923

1904

1912
21 How does Millay most prominently explore the theme of rationality?
By portraying her speaker's attempt to rationalize emotions

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
22 What is the meaning of the word "gale"?
Makeshift home

Angry woman

Blizzard

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

Undermine

Shine

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

Mystery

Emotional emptiness

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

N

A

L

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