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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through The Difficulty of Dying: Rilke's Self-Composed Epitaph.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. Rilke writes in his letters, "Why have they made our sex _______, instead of making it the place for the festival of our competency?"
(a) Homeless.
(b) Loving.
(c) Dangerous.
(d) Carefree.

2. Who is one of the earliest figures of feminism who was friends with Rilke?
(a) Sarah Albright.
(b) Ellen Page.
(c) Victoria Ellison.
(d) Ellen Kay.

3. In "Gravity," Rilke writes, "Yet from the _____ falls, / as from a stored up cloud, / abundant rain of force."
(a) Weeper.
(b) Lover.
(c) Sleeper.
(d) Dreamer.

4. Who does the commentator compare Rilke's relationship toward sex to in the Introduction?
(a) Robert Frost.
(b) Norman Mailer.
(c) Fitzgerald.
(d) Hemingway.

5. From what novel is the excerpt "Blood-Remembering" taken?
(a) The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
(b) The Duino Elegies.
(c) Letters to a Young Poet.
(d) Into the Looking Glass.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Mood write is the fallacy of expression theory in art?

2. From which of Rilke's poems does Mood quote "The Difficulty of Dying," "the glance while, as though caught by a whirlpool's / circling, swims a little while"?

3. The translator claims that the poems in "Rilke's Poems on Love" deserve to take their place alongside whose great love poems?

4. In the last of the untitled love poems, the poet writes, "Do you feel, distant dear miss, / since you are _______ me."

5. What does Rilke write in his first letter, imploring the reader to try to love?

(see the answer key)

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