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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. In the seventh of "The Seven Phallic Poems," what does the poet write that his "semen climbs gladly like"?
(a) A tree.
(b) A child.
(c) A god.
(d) A tower.

2. What, with absinthe, "trickle through silent sieves of kisses of bitter essence"?
(a) Arsenic.
(b) Wormwood.
(c) Lust.
(d) Fairies.

3. What author does Rilke refer to in "The Dragon-Princess"?
(a) Byron.
(b) Nietzsche.
(c) Shelley.
(d) Poe.

4. In one untitled poem of "Rilke's Poems on Other Difficulties," Rilke writes, "Play the ____, the single ones, quickly and you..."
(a) Deaths.
(b) Kisses.
(c) Harps.
(d) Loves.

5. Rilke writes in one letter, "At bottom ______ can help anyone else in life."
(a) Men.
(b) Everyone.
(c) No one.
(d) Women.

Short Answer Questions

1. In Rilke's first letter he suggests to the reader to "resolve to be always" what?

2. Whose influence helped to expand Rilke's vision, according to Mood?

3. What is the title of the poem which begins, "From indescribable transformation flash / such creations--: Feel! and trust!"?

4. From what comes the line, "Murderers are / easily comprehended"?

5. From what comes the line, "Killing is a form of our wandering mourning"?

(see the answer key)

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