The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Charter or agreement

Complaint

Large dinner party

Excess
2 Which best characterizes this poem?
It embraces moral ambiguity, leaving readers unsure who to root for

It makes heavy use of figurative language

It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure

It focuses on the psyche of the speaker
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
A dictator

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A military hospital

A coffee shop

A sugarcane field

A schoolbuilding
5 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
AABAABABA

It has no rhyme scheme

ABCBAADCD

ABBACDDCABBACDDC
6 What is the dictator's palace compared to?
A teapot

A watch face

A dog's mouth

A diamond ring
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
Pablo Neruda

Ben Belitt

W.S. Merwin

Mark Eisner
8 Neruda compares the palace-dwellers to "wineglasses, _____, and piping."
Drumbeats

Gemstones

Chocolates

Collars
9 What is the poem's meter?
Anapestic hexameter

Trochaic trimeter

Iambic pentameter

It is free verse
10 What does the word "finical" mean?
Picky

Shiny

Multifaceted

Erudite
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?
Religious extremism

Industrialization

Adult cruelty to children

Fascism and authoritarianism
12 How many lines are in this poem?
10

17

14

15
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"the blinded, big leaves"

"carrion, blood, and a nausea"

"The snout filled with silence and slime"

"the plant and its pollen"
14 Which of the following are juxtaposed?
The dictator and his allies

The plant and the pollen

The snout and the bones

Laughter and death
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
A subordinate ruler or official

An exclusive, government-sponsored club

A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A grand palace
16 Which type of sensory imagery is prominent in the poem's opening lines?
Sound imagery

Taste imagery

Smell imagery

Tactile imagery
17 What does the plant most likely symbolize?
The power of the arts

Life under dictatorship

God's abandonment

The refuge of nature
18 Which is NOT one of the poem's themes?
Death

Evil and oppression

Inequality

Gender
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?
"Lament was perpetual"

"their festering surfeit of bones"

"A finical satrap conversed"

"Vendetta was born"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?
A plant

A petal

A glove

A mouth
21 What does the word "carrion" mean?
A type of bird of prey

A battle cry

A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain

Decaying dead bodies
22 Neruda uses a simile to compare which of the following to a flower petal?
A flag

A military medal

The smell of corpses

A gunshot wound
23 In which era is this poem most likely set?
The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century

The 1970s

The early Medieval period
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?
As frivolous and willfully blind

As zealous and obsessive

As vulnerable and frightened

As sadistic and monstrous
25 What does the word "bludgeon" mean?
Physical blow

Blunt person

Toolbox

Broken-down vehicle

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