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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Poems on Love.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the excerpt of Rilke's letter in the Introduction, what essay does he refer to reading?
(a) Plato's Symposium.
(b) Platos' Cave.
(c) Cicero's Symposium.
(d) Homer's Odyssey.

2. Rilke writes in "The Seven Phallic Poems," "We close ______ by means of our gazes."
(a) The night.
(b) Our lips.
(c) A circle.
(d) Our blankets.

3. In Rilke's one-line poem of the love poems, he writes, "This is the mute-mouthed mounting of the ______."
(a) Phalli.
(b) Silence.
(c) Kiss.
(d) Woman.

4. In introducing Rilke's love poetry, the commentator notes that the poet's sexual and sensual undertones are mostly overlooked because of the striking impact of what?
(a) His flowery language.
(b) His uncommon rhythms.
(c) His spirituality.
(d) His surreal approach.

5. The commentator notes that all of the poems in "Rilke's Poems on Love" were written when he was how old?
(a) His thirties and forties.
(b) His forties and fifties.
(c) His fifties.
(d) His twenties.

Short Answer Questions

1. Rilke writes in one letter, "Almost everything ______ is difficult, and everything is _______."

2. What, with absinthe, "trickle through silent sieves of kisses of bitter essence"?

3. In the Prologue, who does the commentator say is the other of the two greatest writers of the twentieth century?

4. Which poem begins with the line, "And the last perhaps will not return"?

5. What literary term applies to the following: "exhaust yourself like a spring"?

(see the answer key)

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