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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. In "The Seven Phallic Poems," who "grasps suddenly the bull bud of his vitality"?
(a) The soldier.
(b) The rose-gatherer.
(c) The gardener.
(d) The maiden.

2. Which poem begins with the line, "And the last perhaps will not return"?
(a) "The Lovers."
(b) "Woman's Lament I."
(c) "Greek Love-Talk."
(d) "Woman's Lament II."

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

4. Rilke writes in his letters on love, "Once we were ______ in every part, now we are that in one part only."
(a) Children.
(b) Love.
(c) Sex.
(d) Nature.

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

Short Answer Questions

1. The first collection of poems in "Rilke's Poems on Love" is titled what?

2. What, with absinthe, "trickle through silent sieves of kisses of bitter essence"?

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

4. The poem "Gong" makes use of what literary technique?

5. The translator claims that the poems in "Rilke's Poems on Love" deserve to take their place alongside whose great love poems?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does the commentator say regarding Rilke's feminism in the Prologue?

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

3. How does Rilke regard the difficulty of sex in his opening letters?

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

5. What are the subjects discussed in the "Woman's Lament" poems?

6. Discuss the imagery and symbolism in the poems "From the Cycle: Nights" and "Force of Gravity."

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

8. What does the commentator say regarding the transition to the 1960s' promiscuity and what this transition lacked?

9. How does Mood describe Rilke's masculinity and femininity in his poetry? What does he say of Rilke's own life in this regard?

10. What reference does Rilke use to the god Hermes in The Seven Phallic Poems?

(see the answer keys)

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