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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Book 1, The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke : Chapter 8, Sonnets to Orpheus.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What line follows from "And so you died, as women used to die"?
(a) At home, in your own warm bedroom.
(b) Can you still hear me in death?
(c) During labor, the lament we omitted.
(d) In the streets, like an animal.

2. What is the main difference between the English and German poems?
(a) The German poems are completely different and impossible to translate to English.
(b) The German poems rhyme better than the translation.
(c) The translation has a different message.
(d) The translation uses weaker description.

3. What is "Requiem for a Friend" about?
(a) Love for a best friend.
(b) Fear after somebody has died.
(c) Fear when a baby is born.
(d) Failure to save somebody.

4. How does Rilke describe the gazelle in the poem?
(a) Curious.
(b) Graceful.
(c) Annoyed.
(d) Indecent.

5. Where does "I am the Anxious One" end?
(a) City of Dreams.
(b) City of Time.
(c) City of Weeps.
(d) City of Rain.

Short Answer Questions

1. Who was the Greek mistress of the elegiac verse form?

2. In what year was Book 1, Chapter 5 written?

3. Each elegy is named with ___________________.

4. In "Ariel" which stanza is the longest?

5. Why does the narrator admire the dead person in "Requiem for a Friend"?

(see the answer key)

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