The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Excess

Large dinner party

Charter or agreement

Complaint
2 Which best characterizes this poem?
It follows an elaborate, complex formal structure

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

It makes heavy use of figurative language

It focuses on the psyche of the speaker
3 Which best describes the poem's speaker?
A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker

An unidentified, omniscient third-person speaker

A dictator
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A coffee shop

A sugarcane field

A military hospital

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 diamond ring

A teapot

A dog's mouth

A watch face
7 Who is the translator of the version discussed in this guide?
Ben Belitt

W.S. Merwin

Mark Eisner

Pablo Neruda
8 Neruda compares the palace-dwellers to "wineglasses, _____, and piping."
Gemstones

Chocolates

Drumbeats

Collars
9 What is the poem's meter?
Iambic pentameter

Trochaic trimeter

It is free verse

Anapestic hexameter
10 What does the word "finical" mean?
Erudite

Picky

Shiny

Multifaceted
11 Which of the following does the poem sharply critique?
Fascism and authoritarianism

Industrialization

Adult cruelty to children

Religious extremism
12 How many lines are in this poem?
15

17

10

14
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"the blinded, big leaves"

"the plant and its pollen"

"The snout filled with silence and slime"

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

Laughter and death

The dictator and his allies

The plant and the pollen
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A subordinate ruler or official

An exclusive, government-sponsored club

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

Smell imagery

Sound imagery

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

Life under dictatorship

The refuge of nature

God's abandonment
18 Which is NOT one of the poem's themes?
Inequality

Gender

Death

Evil and oppression
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 petal

A plant

A glove

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

A type of bird of prey

A battle cry

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

A gunshot wound

The smell of corpses

A flag
23 In which era is this poem most likely set?
The 1970s

The mid-twentieth century

The late eighteenth century

The early Medieval period
24 How does Neruda depict authoritarians?
As sadistic and monstrous

As zealous and obsessive

As vulnerable and frightened

As frivolous and willfully blind
25 What does the word "bludgeon" mean?
Broken-down vehicle

Toolbox

Blunt person

Physical blow

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