4
QuizMultiple Choice

Comparing Poetry and Art

Question 4 • RAIL NCAA OC English IV B 2027

Which line from the poem "Monet’s ‘Waterlilies’” by Robert Hayden includes an allusion?

Answer
A
“Today as the news from Selma and Saigon”
B
“O light beheld as through refracting tears.”
C
“Here space and time exist in light”
D
“Here is the aura of that world”

Explanation

An allusion is an indirect reference to a recognizable person, place, event, or work. “Selma and Saigon” alludes to real places associated with major events in the 1960s: the civil rights struggle in Selma and the Vietnam War in Saigon. The other lines describe light, space, and an imagined world without a similarly specific historical reference.

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