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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. Of what excerpt does Mood write is "the most affirmative passage of nonfiction prose I have ever come across"?
(a) "The Dragon-Princess."
(b) "The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge."
(c) "Blood-Remembering."
(d) "Letters to a Young Poet."

2. Who does the commentator conclude that Rilke's epitaph addresses?
(a) God.
(b) Pan.
(c) Orpheus.
(d) Madonna.

3. Which poem of Rilke's does Mood refer to in the lines, "And this: that one opens like a lid, / and lying under there nothing but eyelids"?
(a) "The Bowl of Roses."
(b) "The Rose Window."
(c) "The Lovers."
(d) "Greek Love-Talk."

4. Rilke writes in "Blood-Remembering," One must be able to forget them when they are many and one must have the great _____ to wait until they come again."
(a) Patience.
(b) Fortitude.
(c) Will.
(d) Strength.

5. What does Rilke write of "screams of women" in "Blood-Remembering"?
(a) In heartbreak.
(b) In regret.
(c) In labor.
(d) In sorrow.

Short Answer Questions

1. From what comes the line, "Murderers are / easily comprehended"?

2. What must "one know" in order to write a single verse?

3. In "The Dragon-Princess," Rilke suggests that we hold our life to the most difficult, and that which now "still seems to us the most alien will become" what?

4. What would one feel, displaced from one's room and set in a place of great solitude?

5. In "The Dragon-Princess," Rilke writes that the feeling one might have placed in total isolation, is "an abandonment to something inexpressible would almost ______ him."

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

5. What does Rilke remark in "Blood-Remembering" of the memories themselves?

6. What does "under so many lids" reference in "The Difficulty of Dying"?

7. What is sacred to Mood regarding Rilke's writing? How does he express this in regarding his grave?

8. In "Blood-Remembering," what is the author's discussion of writing from "feelings"?

9. What does Mood say of Orpheus in his interpretation of "The Difficulty of Dying"?

10. What does Rilke remark of childhood memories in "Blood-Remembering"?

(see the answer keys)

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