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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In the second of "The Seven Phallic Poems," who does the poet claim is "drawing my seed up into an abrupt tree"?
(a) Summer.
(b) A garden.
(c) A maiden.
(d) Love.

2. Rilke writes in an untitled poem, "Who keeps innerly _____, touches the roots of speech."
(a) Silent.
(b) Stoic.
(c) Loved.
(d) Remembered.

3. In one untitled poem from "Rilke's Poems of Other Difficulties," the poet writes, "Give me, oh earth, pure _____ / clay for the jug of tears."
(a) Reserved.
(b) Resistent.
(c) Unmitigated.
(d) Unmingling.

4. What does Rilke write in his first letter, imploring the reader to try to love?
(a) The answers.
(b) Dignity.
(c) The questions themselves.
(d) The truth.

5. "Woman's Lament II" ends with the line, "and the ________ is not in vain."
(a) Nightingale.
(b) Ballerina.
(c) Butterfly.
(d) Sparrow.

6. In what amount of time did Rilke write over 1,600 lines of poetry plus a major essay during "the great giving"?
(a) Six months.
(b) Three weeks.
(c) Six weeks.
(d) Three months.

7. What book of Simone de Beauvoir's does the commentator say led him to "militant feminism" in the Introduction to "Rilke's Letters on Love"?
(a) The Second Sex.
(b) The Feminist Manifesto.
(c) The Woman's Life.
(d) Letters to a Young Poet.

8. Rilke remarks in his letters that his sex is "not directed only toward posterity" but is is what?
(a) "The answer within the wind."
(b) "The solution of days."
(c) "The secret of my own life."
(d) "The joy of my life."

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

10. In "Rilke's Poems on Other Difficulties," Rilke writes in one poem from 1924, "We are not to know why / this and that _____ us."
(a) Masters.
(b) Strengthens.
(c) Empowers.
(d) Weakens.

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

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

13. Of what fruit does Rilke write of in "The Poet Praises"?
(a) Strawberry.
(b) Orange.
(c) Banana.
(d) Grapefruit.

14. Writing of one of his principle motifs, the poet writes, "Transform stamen on stamen, / fill your interior _____."
(a) Death.
(b) Rose.
(c) Heart.
(d) Pitcher.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. In the introduction to "Rilke's Poems on Love," the commentator states that Rilke's imagery is all what?

2. In "From the Cycle: Nights," Rilke personifies "Night" as what?

3. Rilke writes in one untitled poem, "Like the _____ of quickly grown-up girls / one braids differently."

4. In the poem, "From the Cycle: Nights," Rilke writes, "Night. Oh you in depths ______."

5. Mood notes in his introduction to Rilke's poetry that the poet was "in no way an _______, nor in his life."

(see the answer keys)

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