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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. Rilke is regarded in his letters and his writing to be distinctly ahead of his time in what respect?

2. In "Rilke's Poems on Other Difficulties," Rilke writes in one poem from 1924, "We are not to know why / this and that _____ us."

3. In the last of the untitled love poems, the poet writes, "Do you feel, distant dear miss, / since you are _______ me."

4. Writing of one of his principle motifs, the poet writes, "Transform stamen on stamen, / fill your interior _____."

5. What sculptor had an influence on Rilke's writing?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

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

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

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

6. In the fourth and fifth of The Seven Phallic Poems, what imagery does the poet use for climax?

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

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

9. How does death intermingle with sex in The Seven Phallic Poems? How does childhood?

10. What references to Venus does Rilke make in the untitled poems of "Poems of Other Difficulties"?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the poems, "Greek Love-Talk" and "The Lovers," describing an analysis of their structure, the placement of punctuation and capitalization, and assonance or alliteration.

Essay Topic 2

Discuss Rilke's relationship to Christianity. How does the poet view Christianity and its stance on sexuality? In what other ways does Rilke speak of religion?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the following in terms of their influence on Rilke and his writing: Friedrich Nietzsche, Auguste Rodin, Sigmund Freud.

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