The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quizzes

The Dictators (Neruda Poem) Quiz

1 What does the word "surfeit" mean?
Large dinner party

Charter or agreement

Complaint

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 focuses on the psyche of the speaker

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

A dictator

A journalist bearing witness to the dictator's cruelty

An unidentified, limited first-person speaker
4 Where are the poem's first several lines set?
A schoolbuilding

A military hospital

A sugarcane field

A coffee shop
5 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
It has no rhyme scheme

AABAABABA

ABBACDDCABBACDDC

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

A dog's mouth

A watch face

A diamond ring
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."
Collars

Gemstones

Chocolates

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

Trochaic trimeter

It is free verse

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

Picky

Shiny

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?
15

17

10

14
13 Which of the following phrases does NOT contain alliteration?
"The snout filled with silence and slime"

"carrion, blood, and a nausea"

"the plant and its pollen"

"the blinded, big leaves"
14 Which of the following are juxtaposed?
Laughter and death

The snout and the bones

The plant and the pollen

The dictator and his allies
15 What does the word "satrap" mean?
An exclusive, government-sponsored club

A grand palace

A type of trap used to catch mice and rats

A subordinate ruler or official
16 Which type of sensory imagery is prominent in the poem's opening lines?
Tactile imagery

Smell imagery

Sound imagery

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

The refuge of nature

God's abandonment

Life under dictatorship
18 Which is NOT one of the poem's themes?
Death

Inequality

Evil and oppression

Gender
19 Which of the following is an instance of hyperbole?
"A finical satrap conversed"

"Lament was perpetual"

"Vendetta was born"

"their festering surfeit of bones"
20 Which of the following serve as a synecdochic representation in the poem?
A petal

A mouth

A glove

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

Decaying dead bodies

A brand of gun popular in fascist Spain

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

A military medal

The smell of corpses

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

The 1970s

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

Blunt person

Physical blow

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