Lesson 4.2.2.21

4.2.2.21 New Selected Poems 1966-1987 by Seamus Heaney Quiz: AQA English Literature A, Unit 2

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 4.2.2.21, New Selected Poems 1966-1987 by Seamus Heaney: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA English Literature A (7712), Unit 2: Texts in shared contexts, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. In which county of Northern Ireland was Seamus Heaney born?

    • County Down
    • County Armagh
    • County Derry
    • County Antrim

  2. Which poem is the opening poem of Heaney's first collection, Death of a Naturalist?

    • Digging
    • Death of a Naturalist
    • Punishment
    • Mid-Term Break

  3. In the poem Digging, what does the speaker set against his father's work with the spade?

    • A tractor on the farm
    • His brother's work in the fields
    • His own work with the pen
    • His mother's work in the kitchen

  4. Which poem describes the death of a young brother, shown through the image of the coffin?

    • Mid-Term Break
    • Blackberry-Picking
    • Digging
    • Punishment

  5. Which poem explores the body of an ancient murder victim found preserved in a bog?

    • Storm on the Island
    • Blackberry-Picking
    • Punishment
    • Digging

  6. What is the primary landscape of many of Heaney's poems?

    • The urban streets of Belfast
    • The deserts of the Middle East
    • The rural landscape of Northern Ireland, including bogs and farms
    • The coastline of western Scotland

  7. What is the subject of the Bog Poems, such as The Tollund Man?

    • Ancient bodies preserved in peat bogs, which Heaney connects with contemporary violence
    • The construction of new motorways
    • The history of the Irish railway
    • Modern industrial farming methods

  8. Which Nobel Prize did Seamus Heaney receive?

    • The Nobel Prize in Literature
    • The Nobel Peace Prize
    • The Nobel Prize in Physics
    • The Nobel Prize in Chemistry

  9. How does Heaney present the relationship between language and identity?

    • Language has no role in preserving memory
    • Language is only important for political debate
    • Language is linked to place, memory and the inheritance of craft
    • Language is a neutral tool with no connection to identity

  10. What does the poem Punishment suggest about violence in Northern Ireland?

    • That violence is a sign of national unity
    • That violence in Northern Ireland has no historical roots
    • That the violence of the past is linked to the sectarian killings of the present
    • That violence is only a problem for the urban poor

  11. What is the effect of Heaney's use of sensory detail in his poems?

    • It focuses only on the speaker's dreams
    • It creates a sense of abstraction and distance
    • It removes emotion from the poems
    • It makes the natural world and the act of memory vivid and concrete

  12. What is the significance of the farm in Heaney's early poetry?

    • It represents family, labour and a sense of belonging
    • It represents an urban life that is cut off from nature
    • It represents a place of escape from the family
    • It represents the centre of industrial production

  13. Which theme recurs in Heaney's treatment of the father?

    • The father's rejection of the son
    • The passing down of skills and the complex bond between generations
    • The father's success in urban business
    • The father's love of foreign travel

  14. How does Heaney use the image of the bog in his poetry?

    • As a symbol of holiday leisure
    • As a symbol of industrial pollution
    • As a symbol of modern urban development
    • As a symbol of preservation, memory and the buried past

  15. Which collection contains Heaney's Bog Poems?

    • Wintering Out and North
    • Station Island and Human Chain
    • Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark
    • Field Work and Seeing Things

  16. What does Heaney's poetry suggest about the poet's responsibility?

    • The poet must face the violence and history of his community with honesty
    • The poet should avoid political and historical questions
    • The poet has no responsibility beyond artistic beauty
    • The poet should write only about personal pleasure

  17. What is the effect of Heaney's use of the first person in many poems?

    • It gives an intimate and personal perspective on memory and experience
    • It removes the speaker from the events described
    • It suggests the poem is a formal public speech
    • It hides the poet's identity completely

  18. What does Mid-Term Break reveal about the speaker's family?

    • Their success in a business venture
    • Their anger at a neighbour's violence
    • Their joy at a family reunion
    • Their grief at a sudden loss, expressed through restrained and understated language

  19. Which idea best describes Heaney's view of the past?

    • The past is irrelevant to modern life
    • The past can be fully recovered without interpretation
    • The past shapes the present and must be understood through memory and imagination
    • The past is only a matter of historical records

  20. Which feature of Heaney's poems creates a sense of ritual and ceremony?

    • Long prose passages between each poem
    • Frequent use of dialogue with many characters
    • Use of lists of statistics
    • Repetition and the careful structuring of lines and stanzas

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