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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

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

3. What did the commentator originally call the selections of Rilke's letters which he copied and gave out?
(a) "Notes on Love."
(b) "Rilke on Love."
(c) "The Love Letters."
(d) "Letters of Love."

4. In the introduction to "Rilke's Poems on Love," the commentator states that Rilke's imagery is all what?
(a) Unnatural.
(b) Earthly.
(c) Heavenly.
(d) Surreal.

5. In one of the untitled love poems, Rilke writes, "What fields are fragrant as your ______?"
(a) Kiss.
(b) Hands.
(c) Lips.
(d) Eyes.

6. In one untitled love poem, Rilke writes, "Drinking would seem too much, too ____, to me"?
(a) Overwhelming.
(b) Plain.
(c) Lustful.
(d) Loving.

7. In what poem does Rilke write "Life and death: they are one, at core intertwined"?
(a) "Woman's Lament II."
(b) "The Poet Speaks of Praising."
(c) "The Poet Praises."
(d) "The Poems Praise."

8. What is the title of the poem which begins, "Center, how you draw yourself out"?
(a) "Magic."
(b) "Music."
(c) "Force of Gravity."
(d) "From the Cycle: Nights."

9. What does the poet say in his untitled poem to do with that which, "offers itself to us with starlight"?
(a) Cry with it.
(b) Let it be free.
(c) Hide from it.
(d) Take it seriously.

10. Whose influence helped to expand Rilke's vision, according to Mood?
(a) Donne.
(b) Goethe.
(c) Nietzsche.
(d) Beckett.

11. The poem "Gong" makes use of what literary technique?
(a) Segmentation.
(b) Irony.
(c) Absurdism.
(d) Onomatapeia.

12. The commentator regards that Rilke's "justly famed deep spirituality" is rooted essentially in what?
(a) God.
(b) Nature.
(c) Sex.
(d) Heaven.

13. Rilke writes of love that "So whoever loves must try to act as if he had a _________."
(a) Priceless possession.
(b) Fragile jewel.
(c) Great work.
(d) Holy thing.

14. What literary term applies to the following: "exhaust yourself like a spring"?
(a) Alliteration.
(b) Metaphor.
(c) Irony.
(d) Simile.

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

Short Answer Questions

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

2. This first poem in "Rilke's Poems on Other Difficulties" is titled what?

3. What does Rilke write in Part V of "The Seven Phallic Poems" has "weakened you and me"?

4. Who does Rilke say is incapable of such loving as he calls for?

5. In "Rilke's Poems on Other Difficulties," Rilke writes in one poem from 1924, "We are not to know why / this and that _____ us."

(see the answer keys)

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