The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Excess

Complaint

Large dinner party

Charter or agreement
2 Which best characterizes this poem?
It makes heavy use of figurative language

It focuses on the psyche of the speaker

It embraces moral ambiguity, leaving readers unsure who to root for

It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

A dictator

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

A military hospital

A coffee shop

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

It has no rhyme scheme

AABAABABA

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

A dog's mouth

A diamond ring

A watch face
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
Pablo Neruda

Mark Eisner

W.S. Merwin

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

Chocolates

Collars

Gemstones
9 What is the poem's meter?
It is free verse

Anapestic hexameter

Iambic pentameter

Trochaic trimeter
10 What does the word "finical" mean?
Erudite

Shiny

Multifaceted

Picky
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?
Industrialization

Religious extremism

Fascism and authoritarianism

Adult cruelty to children
12 How many lines are in this poem?
14

10

15

17
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"The snout filled with silence and slime"

"the blinded, big leaves"

"the plant and its pollen"

"carrion, blood, and a nausea"
14 Which of the following are juxtaposed?
The snout and the bones

The dictator and his allies

The plant and the pollen

Laughter and death
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
An exclusive, government-sponsored club

A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A subordinate ruler or official

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

Sound imagery

Smell imagery

Tactile imagery
17 What does the plant most likely symbolize?
Life under dictatorship

The power of the arts

God's abandonment

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

Gender

Evil and oppression

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

"their festering surfeit of bones"

"Vendetta was born"

"A finical satrap conversed"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?
A glove

A mouth

A petal

A plant
21 What does the word "carrion" mean?
A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain

Decaying dead bodies

A type of bird of prey

A battle cry
22 Neruda uses a simile to compare which of the following to a flower petal?
A flag

A gunshot wound

A military medal

The smell of corpses
23 In which era is this poem most likely set?
The early Medieval period

The 1970s

The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?
As zealous and obsessive

As frivolous and willfully blind

As vulnerable and frightened

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

Physical blow

Blunt person

Broken-down vehicle

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