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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. One poem, using nature imagery, reads, "Cheerful gift from the chillier / mountains / attempts to leap into ____."
(a) Spring.
(b) June.
(c) Summer.
(d) August.

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

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

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

5. 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 Feminist Manifesto.
(b) The Woman's Life.
(c) The Second Sex.
(d) Letters to a Young Poet.

Short Answer Questions

1. "Woman's Lament II" ends with the line, "and the ________ is not in vain."

2. In an untitled poem from "Rilke's Poems on Other Difficulties," Rilke writes, "Great star of love's priestesses, which _____ kindles from its own right."

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

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

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What sexual elements are undertaken in The Seven Phallic Poems?

2. What is the poet writing about in "The Poet Praises"?

3. What is Rilke's discussion regarding religion and the Christian church specifically in his letters?

4. In the untitled poems following "The Lovers," what imagery does the poet use?

5. What does Rilke write of using the metaphor of water, song, and play in his untitled poems?

6. What does Rilke write of "silence" in his untitled poems?

7. What is the subject and imagery in the poem "Magic"?

8. How does Rilke suggest sexuality should be regarded in terms of innocence? What does he say of children?

9. What does Mood say in regard to Rilke's vision of Eros in the Prologue?

10. What does Rilke say regarding the institute of marriage and solitude?

(see the answer keys)

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