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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In Rilke's first letter he suggests to the reader to "resolve to be always" what?
(a) Trying.
(b) Ending.
(c) Failing.
(d) Beginning.

2. The first collection of poems in "Rilke's Poems on Love" is titled what?
(a) "Poems to Orpheus."
(b) "The Seven Phallic Poems."
(c) "Rites to Passage."
(d) "Duino Elegies."

3. In what year did Rilke write "The Seven Phallic Poems"?
(a) 1905.
(b) 1915.
(c) 1925.
(d) 1940.

4. In a very short untitled poem, Rilke writes, "The voices warned me so I _____."
(a) Ceased.
(b) Ran.
(c) Wept.
(d) Desisted.

5. According to Rilke, there is "scarcely anything more difficult" than what?
(a) To leave one's love.
(b) To birth a child.
(c) To love one another.
(d) To stand alone.

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

7. One of the shortest of the love poems consists of the following two lines: "Also to affirm even ______ / like a thing."
(a) Woman.
(b) Lust.
(c) Love.
(d) Rapture.

8. 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.

9. What does Rilke write that he holds to be "the highest task of a bond between two people"?
(a) That they should stand alone.
(b) That they must live closely.
(c) That they should hold no limits to their connection.
(d) That they should each stand guard over the solitude of the other.

10. What is the only novel that Rilke wrote?
(a) The Grapes of Wrath.
(b) Lessons of a Forgotten Soul.
(c) The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
(d) Letters to a Young Poet.

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

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

13. What does Rilke write in Part V of "The Seven Phallic Poems" has "weakened you and me"?
(a) Too ample space.
(b) Too strong a love.
(c) Too strong an adversary.
(d) Too great a distance.

14. Which poem begins, "See how in their veins all becomes spirit"?
(a) "The Seven Phallic Poems."
(b) "Woman's Lament I."
(c) "The Lovers."
(d) "Greek Love-Talk."

15. In the Prologue, who does the commentator say is the other of the two greatest writers of the twentieth century?
(a) James Joyce.
(b) F. Scott Fitzgerald.
(c) Ernest Hemingway.
(d) Samuel Beckett.

Short Answer Questions

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

2. Who does the commentator compare Rilke's relationship toward sex to in the Introduction?

3. When did Rilke undertake "the great giving"?

4. In the excerpt of Rilke's letter in the Introduction, what essay does he refer to reading?

5. What is the name of the artists' colony in Russian where Rilke was further influenced in his writing?

(see the answer keys)

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