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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 what poems does Rilke refer to the rose as a "body of nothing but radiance"?
(a) Duino Elegies.
(b) The Rose Poems.
(c) Seven Phallic Poems.
(d) Sonnets to Orpheus.

2. Rilke wrote less about the craft of writing than what, according to Mood?
(a) The heart.
(b) The structure.
(c) The integrity.
(d) The inner life discipline.

3. How much earlier than his death did Rilke pen his epitaph?
(a) Fifteen months.
(b) Two months.
(c) One month.
(d) Three years.

4. From what novel is the excerpt "Blood-Remembering" taken?
(a) The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge.
(b) Into the Looking Glass.
(c) The Duino Elegies.
(d) Letters to a Young Poet.

5. Speaking of solitude, Rilke writes, "We are solitary. We may _____ ourselves and act as though this were not so."
(a) Trick.
(b) Deny.
(c) Delude.
(d) Lie to.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Rilke write that one ought to wait and gather "a whole life long," in "Blood-Remembering"?

2. From which of Rilke's poems does Mood quote "The Difficulty of Dying," "the glance while, as though caught by a whirlpool's / circling, swims a little while"?

3. Rilke suggests to the reader in "The Dragon-Princess," "we must assume our existence as _____ as we in any way can."

4. Who does Mood quote in the Epilogue with the line, "... tormentor and tormented pedant and dunce wooer and wooed speechless and reafflicted with speech in the dark mud nothing to emend there"?

5. Rilke's final metaphor in "The Dragon-Princess" states that perhaps all the "dragons of our lives are" what?

Short Essay Questions

1. In "Blood-Remembering," what does Rilke write about the young as writers?

2. What does Mood examine about Rilke's vision of the empty space within the rose?

3. What is the poem discussed in "The Difficulty of Dying"?

4. What does "Blood-Remembering" mean?

5. What does Mood believe Rilke associated between life and death?

6. What does Mood posit that the word "Desire" implies in "The Difficulty of Dying"?

7. What word does Mood focus on regarding Rilke's writing of "The Dragon-Princess"?

8. What must one "see" in order to write a single verse, according to Rilke?

9. What happens once man has acclimated himself to solitude, according to Rilke in "The Dragon-Princess"?

10. What does Mood discuss in the introduction to "The Dragon-Princess"?

(see the answer keys)

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