Personal Helicon Quizzes

Personal Helicon Quiz

1 What is the Helicon primarily associated with?
Artistic inspiration

Moral redemption

Romantic love

Spiritual healing
2 What is the poem's major conflict?
The tension between modernity and local tradition

The speaker's parents' hopes for him versus his friends' pressures

The speaker's inability to decide whether to live a rural or a cosmopolitan life

The speaker's desire to explore, counter to social expectation
3 What does the phrase "the trapped sky" most likely refer to?
The sky through a stained-glass window

The reflection of the sky

The appearance of a cloudy sky before a storm

The adult speaker's narrow memory of childhood landscapes
4 What is the focus of the speaker's childhood exploration?
Trees

Ponds

Caves

Wells
5 What does the speaker like about echoes?
They cause nearby animals to respond

They make him feel that he is not alone, even in remote places

They feel like confirmation of God or other spiritual beings

They help him hear and understand himself anew
6 The speaker implies that he has changed his behavior as an adult for which reason?
He must care for his family and cannot take risks

He realizes that his explorations were insensitive to his neighbors

He has become physically weak, though he is mentally sharp

He does not want to be thought vain or undignified
7 The phrase "the dark drop" is an example of which of the following?
Understatement

Personification

Simile

Alliteration
8 How many stanzas are in the poem?
4

3

2

5
9 What is the poem's rhyme scheme?
ABCBCBA

ABABAB

ABAB

ABC CBA
10 To which mythological figure does the poem allude?
Hercules

Narcissus

Odysseus

Persephone
11 What type of stanzas comprise this poem?
4

6

3

5
12 Which word best describes the young speaker?
Curious

Kind

Listless

Industrious
13 What is meant by the word "scaresome"?
Frightening

Scarce

Jumpy

Haunting
14 How does the speaker reconnect to his childhood passions as an adult?
Through family stories and folktales

Through visiting his old home

Through documenting the sites he once explored

Through writing poetry
15 Which sound creates assonance in the phrase "pumps with buckets and windlasses"?
S's

U's

B's

P's
16 Which line contains alliterative R sounds?
"I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky"

"a rat slapped across my reflection."

"To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring"

"I savoured the rich crash"
17 Which of the following lines contains hyperbole?
"I savoured the rich crash..."

"...a rat slapped across my reflection."

"As a child, they could not keep me from wells"

"A shallow one under a dry stone ditch"
18 Which of the following elements of wells assume the most significance in this poem?
Dirtiness and murkiness

Depth and darkness

Echoes and reflections

Fluidity and movement
19 Which of the following is true of Ireland's holy wells?
They are often associated with a patron saint

They are not true wells, but rather manmade pools

They are usually surrounded by religious buildings

They are largely concentrated in the Dublin area
20 What is the "white face" described in stanza 3?
The speaker's deceased ancestors

The spirit of the local holy well

An unidentified wild animal

The speaker's reflection
21 Which of the following words is an example of onomatopoeia?
scaresome

Crash

Dank

Ditch
22 For which of the following purposes do people often use holy wells?
Healing the sick

Divining the future

Watering crops

Cleaning spiritually unclean objects
23 Which element of poetry does the speaker highlight in the poem's final lines?
Rhyme

Metaphor

Enjambment

Meter
24 Which does NOT describe the poem's tone?
Bitter

Playful

Nostalgic

Contemplative
25 What does the word "fructify" mean?
To rot or decay

To make something productive

To sanctify or devote to a saint

To sweeten

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Personal Helicon study guide contains a biography of Seamus Heaney, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

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