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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In what manner does Rilke say people should approach love?
(a) As children.
(b) As students.
(c) As apprentices.
(d) As teachers.

2. In what year does Rilke write the fifth letter?
(a) 1912.
(b) 1904.
(c) 1903.
(d) 1908.

3. At the end of letter eight, what does Rilke remind the young poet of?
(a) His first poems.
(b) How he once longed to emerge from his youth and realize himself.
(c) His parents' love.
(d) His fear of judgment.

4. What does Rilke say about fears in the world in letter eight?
(a) Fears must be ignored.
(b) Gears must be acknowledged.
(c) Fears are natural.
(d) We have created the fears.

5. In letter eight, what does Rilke tell the young poet he must be careful with?
(a) Names.
(b) Sadnesses.
(c) Thoughts.
(d) Prayers.

6. Who resists the future change in women that Rilke notes in letter seven?
(a) Philosophers.
(b) Militaries.
(c) Men.
(d) The Church.

7. What is the primary topic of the eighth letter?
(a) Creativity.
(b) Solitude.
(c) Sadness.
(d) Nature.

8. In letter seven, what does Rilke say that love should be?
(a) A motivation for each person to become wholly him or herself.
(b) A union of one with another.
(c) A selfless act.
(d) A balance of mental and physical.

9. At the close of letter seven, what love does Rilke tell the young poet to remember?
(a) The love of his first experience of solitude.
(b) The love of his parents.
(c) The love of Rilke.
(d) The love of nature.

10. Rilke tells the young poet that in regard to his sickness, he is a sick man, a convalescent, and what else?
(a) A shaman.
(b) A medicine.
(c) An illness.
(d) A doctor.

11. At the close of the sixth letter, how does Rilke tell the young poet to be?
(a) "Be happy in solitude."
(b) "Be joyful in art."
(c) "Be glad and confident."
(d) "Be one with nature."

12. How does Rilke note that the future change in the role of women affects love?
(a) It makes love more feminine.
(b) It makes love more real.
(c) It makes love more patient.
(d) It makes love more human.

13. Who writes the poem Rilke encloses with his seventh letter?
(a) Shakespeare.
(b) Kappus.
(c) Rilke.
(d) Petrarch.

14. Why does Rilke believe that Rome makes one sad for the first few days of visiting it?
(a) It no longer has its ancient glory.
(b) It is too hot.
(c) Its reminders of ages past are oppressive.
(d) It is too busy.

15. To what does Rilke compare people who are preparing for God?
(a) Fools.
(b) Bees.
(c) Poems.
(d) Roses.

Short Answer Questions

1. What holiday is Rilke marking with his sixth letter?

2. What does Rilke say is "the only courage demanded of us"?

3. Rilke says that eventually women no longer are the opposite of men, but something else. What are they?

4. According to Rilke in letter eight, where does destiny originate?

5. What does Rilke say is "the most difficult of all our tasks"?

(see the answer keys)

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