Quiz RA.4: Poetic Devices 1

Name:_______________________________________________ Date:________________

Poetry Terms

Answer the questions below each poem.  Pay attention to bolded letters/words.

Standard: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.4 Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.


Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

“ ’Tis some visiter,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door —

Only this, and nothing more.”

Edgar Allen Poe, “The Raven”


1. The bold letters in the above quote are examples of:

a) alliteration

b) assonance

c) iambic pentameter

d) simile



I bomb atomically—Socrates' philosophies and hypotheses can't define how I be droppin' these mockeries.

Inspectah Deck from Wu Tang Clan's “Triumph”


2. The bold letters in the above quote are examples of:

a) alliteration

b) assonance

c) iambic pentameter

d) simile



All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances;

William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”


3. The above quotation is an example of:

a) parallelism

b) personification

c) onomatopoeia

d) metaphor



"Ah, William, we're weary of weather,"
said the sunflowers, shining with dew.
"Our traveling habits have tired us.
Can you give us a room with a view?"

They arranged themselves at the window
and counted the steps of the sun,
and they both took root in the carpet
where the topaz tortoises run. 

William Blake, “Two Sunflowers Move in the Yellow Room”


4. The above poem features an example of:

a) simile

b) personification

c) hyperbole

d) metaphor



An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes and on they forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast;

But thirty thousand to the rest...

Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress”


5. The above quotation is an example of:

a) simile

b) personification

c) hyperbole

d) metaphor



6. In the lines below, write an example of iambic pentameter:

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