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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Rilke claim a sadness indicates about a person's life or self?
(a) A transition.
(b) A fear.
(c) A loss.
(d) A realization.

2. In what year is Rilke's sixth letter written?
(a) 1912.
(b) 1904.
(c) 1908.
(d) 1903.

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

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

5. Rilke says that as time passes, women will stop doing what?
(a) Being oppressed.
(b) Having children.
(c) Falling in love.
(d) Imitating men.

Short Answer Questions

1. In what manner does Rilke say people should approach love?

2. What type of poem does Rilke enclose with the seventh letter?

3. What famous author does Rilke reference in letter eight?

4. In what year is Rilke writing the eighth letter?

5. Why does Rilke delay so long in replying to the young poet's fifth letter?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why does Rilke send a copy of the young poet's sonnet with letter seven?

2. In letter seven, Rilke compares an ideal romantic relationship to "two solitudes [that] protect and border and salute each other." What does he mean by this?

3. What is Rilke's view of God?

4. How does Rilke respond to the young poet's expression of fear that the young poet has lost God?

5. Explain what Rilke means when in letter eight he says that sadness "are the moments when something new has entered into us".

6. What does Rilke mean when, in letter seven, he says that in the future, femininity will not be "merely an opposite of the masculine, but. something in itself"?

7. In letter six, Rilke encourages the young poet to maintain what he calls "a child's wise incomprehension" rather than joining in the "defensiveness and disdain" that are shared by the masses. What does he mean by this?

8. What is Rilke's definition of love?

9. Rilke implies that security and comfort are negative. Why?

10. Why does Rilke advise the young poet "to be lonely and attentive when one is sad" in letter eight?

(see the answer keys)

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